TaxWatch published an article in Taxation magazine last week about the launch of the Funding the Nation report by ARC, the union for senior staff within HMRC.
The report identifies changes required to turn HMRC into a world class tax authority after years of underinvestment. It includes contributions from TaxWatch and many others involved in the tax world.
At the very moment the Chancellor was searching for fiscal headroom at last week’s Budget, just across Parliament Square UK ministers and representatives of some of the world’s most important offshore financial centres were presiding over another year of drift and broken promises on tackling offshore secrecy.
The Budget’s third-largest tax pledge relies on a UK tax authority that is suffering from recruitment delays and unfinished IT systems. Just 26 of 6,700 extra compliance/debt staff promised by Chancellor are so far in post. A key tax to counter digital giants’ profit-shifting will remain despite Trump pressure, but the Budget has missed opportunities to tackle abused corporate reliefs now as large as the child benefit budget.