With tax avoidance and evasion continuing to be high on the political agenda, HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) has announced its intention to achieve 100 serious and complex tax crime prosecutions by the end of the current Parliament in 2022.
The announcement was included in HMRC’s Single Department Plan, published last month, which sets out three overarching objectives:
- Maximise revenues and bear down on avoidance and evasion;
- Transform tax and payments for our customers; and
- Design and deliver a professional, efficient and engaged organisation.
As part of the first objective, HMRC has said that it will invest an additional £800 million in efforts to tackle evasion. It expects these efforts to raise an additional £5 billion annually by 2019-20.
Meanwhile, the Revenue has said that it will bring 2,000 more individuals with net wealth between £10 million and £20 million into its model for the wealthiest individuals.
The document also reveals that in the 2016/17 tax years, HMRC brought in £574.9 billion in revenue, an increase of £38.1 billion on the previous year, of which it attributed £28.9 billion to compliance activities.
