Read more about TaxWatch’s work, including reports, analysis and comment pieces.
NAO calls out HMRC for not having a strategic plan on tax evasion.
Record levels of tax relief claimed by the creative industries sector in 2023. The reliefs are now dominated by fewer, extremely large, claims for film and ‘high-end’ TV programmes. TaxWatch questions whether these reliefs offer good value for money given the profitability of expensive productions in light of changes to the Audio Visual Expenditure Credit.
Once again, the National Audit Office qualified HMRC’s accounts due to a “material level of error and fraud in Corporation Tax research and development reliefs”. Whilst the good news is that the estimated error rate within the relief is coming down it remains unacceptably high. It has taken years for HMRC to admit there were problems, despite plenty of warnings, and action has been too slow to avoid the situation getting totally out of hand.
TaxWatch analyses the latest tax gap data and examines manifesto pledges to narrow the gap to see whether they represent credible plans to increase tax revenues
TaxWatch analyses the latest Tax Gap publication, noting it has reached £40bn in 2022-23 yet still doesn’t cover offshore matters
TaxWatch reflects on the party manifestos for the upcoming General Election
TaxWatch reflects on the Liberal Democrat proposal to hike Digital Services Tax
Conservative Party to re-introduce age related allowances: TaxWatch’s thoughts on the proposal
The abrupt end to the Parliamentary session leaves several key Finance Bill clauses to the final washup day.
HMRC is being elusive about the amounts due on specific offshore compliance penalties, providing confusing answers to Freedom of Information requests.
The Treasury’s additional funding for HMRC customer service is just a sticking plaster over an ingrained problem that needs a longer-term strategy and consistency of funding to resolve.
HMRC now says offshore tax gap data will be published in June 2024, two years after the government announced it and a year after the information was due.