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 18 May, MPs quizzed senior HMRC officials about how they’re making the biggest multinational companies pay their due taxes. HMRC officials confirmed TaxWatch’s findings that HMRC simply doesn’t know some key facts about its own tax enforcement efforts: including, astonishingly, how many large businesses they are currently investigating for tax fraud or other serious, deliberate tax non-compliance.
While consumers’ fuel bills go up, a £1.5 billion tax bill levied on one of the world’s biggest oil traders remains unsettled. This week it announced bumper trading profits amidst the global oil supply shock. HMRC first alleged that the company’s oil trading profits were being shifted artificially to Switzerland fifteen years ago. So how are the same transactions still continuing today?