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.
On 13 January, Parliament’s Treasury Select Committee grilled HMRC’s chief and senior staff about their efforts to tackle tax avoidance, evasion and tax debt. MPs referenced TaxWatch research and investigations in questions about corporate tax reliefs, recruitment, penalties for enablers of tax evasion, and the ‘offshore tax gap’. There was good news in some of the responses – but others raised more questions.
HMRC has promised that from 2026 it will transform the way it uses digital tools to tackle tax evasion and interface with taxpayers. With the clock ticking, here are five things we found out this year about how HMRC’s digital transformation – including Making Tax Digital – is going.