News

Rayner tax error: government must stop dragging its feet on regulating tax advice

Successive governments have rejected calls for a tax advice regulator and minimum professional standards, which exist in many other countries from Australia to Germany. It’s high time that UK taxpayers got similar protections.

Big fish, little fish…

With limited resources, how should the UK prioritise different types and targets of tax enforcement?

The transparency registers that weren’t

UK ministers have praised five of the UK’s Overseas Territories for searchable registers revealing who really owns companies registered there. TaxWatch has found that one of these new registers doesn’t even exist, and others have erected last-minute legal blocks against access.

New weapons, same problems?

Stronger powers against ‘enablers’ – those who design and enable aggressive tax avoidance and evasion – are back on the table once again. But new figures show that existing powers are still not being used.

Broken offshore promises undermine the UK’s tax system

New figures on UK tax enforcement show that Pandora Papers leaks can’t supplant properly available information about who really owns offshore companies.

The gap in the Tax Gap

Quietly buried in HMRC spreadsheets released today is the news that the UK Tax Gap is consistently much bigger than HMRC previously said. New evidence suggests that the government may be under-estimating by several billion pounds the amount of income hidden offshore, and non-compliance amongst the largest and wealthiest taxpayers.

Starving HMRC will make it harder for Rachel Reeves to meet spending targets: TaxWatch responds to the CSR

Shrinking the £40 billion tax gap and £38 billion of outstanding tax debts is going to be critical for making today’s Spending Review numbers add up. Can HMRC deliver this with a real-term budget cut?

Donald Trump claims the UK’s Digital Services Tax overwhelmingly targets US tech giants. New data obtained by TaxWatch shows it doesn’t.

From the White House to the tech sector, the UK’s Digital Services Tax has been described as a discriminatory ‘tariff’ almost entirely targeting large US internet companies. New statistics show that’s not quite true.

“With hindsight, the wrong way to do it”

Why aren’t enablers of tax abuse being penalised? HMRC’s powers to sanction delinquent tax advisers have roadblocks built in, and there are still gaps in naming and shaming.

Glass half full? Are wealthy taxpayers underpaying more tax than we thought

HMRC is recovering more missing tax from wealthy individuals. But beneath the headlines: the tax this group is underpaying may be larger than previously thought, and is likely growing, while penalties for their non-compliance have plummeted.

Back to the drawing board

The government wants to step up the fight against enablers of tax abuse (again). New powers and better information can help. But HMRC is barely using the powers and penalties it already has.

Reducing UK’s Digital Services Tax: The high price of trade appeasement?

Scrapping the UK’s Digital Services Tax is the opposite of a good strategy in the face of a US trade war, when instead it should be reformed to operate better for the British public finances