by Mike Lewis | Jan 14, 2026
Yesterday (13 January) Parliament’s Treasury Select Committee grilled HMRC’s chief and senior staff about their efforts to tackle tax avoidance, evasion and debt. MPs referenced TaxWatch research and investigations in questions about corporate tax reliefs,...
by Mike Lewis | Jun 19, 2025
Summary: Quietly buried in HMRC spreadsheets released today is the news that the UK Tax Gap – the gap between tax due and tax collected – seems consistently to be billions of pounds bigger than HMRC previously estimated. New evidence suggests that the...
by Simon Watkins | Jan 23, 2025
HMRC’s offshore tax gap estimate labelled “implausibly low” Concerns raised about lack of strategy for reducing the tax gap despite additional resources Questions over fall in criminal prosecutions and potential deterrent effect A political scuffle has erupted over...
by Claire Aston | Oct 24, 2024
£300 million tax lost to non compliance by UK resident individuals on offshore accounts in 2018-19 This figure appears to be a gross underestimate, definitely excluding any assets held through companies, and the treatment of assets within trusts isn’t clear...
by Claire Aston | Jun 20, 2024
Nearly £40bn of tax revenues go uncollected in 2022-23 – £4bn more than prior year Non-compliance estimated at 4.8% of all tax owed. 2021-22’s percentage has been revised up from 4.8% to 5.2% Major reasons for the jump are: Behaviours: Higher non-payment/tax debt, now...
