Facebook published its 2017 accounts in the UK, showing that its tax bill had risen to £17m after it had changed its structure to book more revenues onshore. However, as Taxwatch director George Turner told the Independent, Facebook’s real profits in the UK are likely to be much higher.
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.
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.