The transparency registers that weren’t

The transparency registers that weren’t

by | Aug 7, 2025

Summary: UK ministers last month hailed five of the UK’s Overseas Territories for putting in place searchable registers to reveal who really owns companies in their territory – a key tool against tax evasion, money laundering and other illicit financial activities....
New weapons, same problems?

New weapons, same problems?

by | Jul 18, 2025

New 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.   A report published by the Public Accounts Committee...
The gap in the Tax Gap

The gap in the Tax Gap

by | 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...
“With hindsight, the wrong way to do it”

“With hindsight, the wrong way to do it”

by | May 23, 2025

Previously we found that HMRC is hardly using powers to investigate, penalise and publicise tax advisers who enable tax abuse. Here we look at why these powers aren’t being used: a barrage of legal roadblocks; and holding back on naming and shaming. *** When tax...