HM Revenue & Customs has published a business plan for 2011/2015. On its first page it says:
HM Revenue & Customs’ vision is:
- to close the tax gap;
- to make our customers feel that the tax system is simple for them and even-handed; and
- to be seen as a highly professional and efficient organisation.
This is quite extraordinary. Until the TUC published my report entitled ‘The Missing Billions’ in February 2008 we know from published documentation that HMRC paid almost no attention to this issue. Now it is their number one priority, or so they say. That in itself is a radical consequence of the campaigns that I have been involved with.
It would be so much better if the resources allocated to the task indicated that they were serious in their statement of intent. Unfortunately, as I have long predicted, planned spending on tax assessment and collection by HMRC will fall over the next few years. The inevitable consequence is that the tax gap will increase.
I always remember the old adage that 'failing to plan is planning to fail”. Unfortunately, in HMRC's case it seems that they are planning, but planning to fail anyway.
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Has it finally ocurred to them that no taxes mean no services and also no pensions?
The literature seems to be suggesting that at a total investment of £0.9bn in the fund will deliver an accumulated return somewhere in the range £10 – £16 billion.
Wow! I don’t anywhere else where an investor could get such a fantastic return.
How do I get in on this scheme? I’ve worked out I could put in around £2200 each year over the next four years and I’ll get back between £100,000 to £160,000
My wife suggests we re-mortgage the house and put more money into the fund. I’m not sure about this. Could you offer any advice pleaae Richard?
@RichardSM
Brilliant, isn’t it
And ye they only want to invest £900 million – or so they say
Actually, they’re in real terms cutting about £2.1 bn out of HMRC over the next four years
So the negative rate of return is enormous
Now why would they do that?
Did you notice the business plan commits to publishing a tax gap estimate annually? About time too. The rest of the transparency commitment also sounds useful, but rather vague – would be good to find out a bit more of what’s involved…
They could close the gap – straight away ! By employing yourself, no Richard ?? : keep up the good work !! (I’ve been following your work for years ! – good to see some progress with the TUC !!): I know the Tax Justice Network is involved in the European Social Forum & the World Social Forum (I’m involved in the ESF mostly): hopefully we can build the pressure up for “SYSTEM CHANGE” (as in the Declaration of The Assembly of The Social Movements @ the WSF in Belem, Brazil : Jan 2009):
Hwyl/Salud/Cheers…..in solidarity !!
Richard, is it possible you missed the article in the Guardian on Saturday headed “Offshore tax crackdown to raise £10bn”? Does this statement from “Treasury officials” add anything to what is already known, or are they recycling old news?
The coalition claim they’ll spend ‘an extra £900m’ over four years pursuing tax. That’s roughly £220 million each year. And they also claim that prosecutions will increase fivefold. Let’s see how that stacks up.
According to the Revenue and Customs Prosecutions Office (RCPO report below) their annual budget is currently £34million.
Its reasonable to assume that if HMRC are to find a fivefold increase in the number of prosecutions they refer to RCPO, then RCPO costs will rise fivefold, arguably more. (5 x £34m = £170m)
It doesn’t leave much from the ‘extra £220m’ for HMRC to find all these cases, does it?
————–
Source:
RCPO Report and Accounts 2009
http://www.official-documents.gov.uk/document/hc0809/hc06/0658/0658.pdf
@RogerM
A treasury statement in the Guardian? Its all a bit vague and hopeful. We’ll see.
Hmmm. Reading this treasury statement again, the talk once more is about Switzerland and Liechtenstein. Heinrich Kieber and Herve Falciani come to mind. These are the two well known whistleblowers who provided the German and French tax authorities with some very valuable banking information, the UK content of which eventually made it’s way round to HMRC, to be endlessly recycled year after year as “proof” that HMRC are tough on tax evasion.
Many of the world’s tax havens are actually British territory in some shape or form. Eighteen of the world’s tax havens are Crown Dependencies or British Protectorates. What happens when whistleblowers from some of these English speaking tax havens decide to approach HMRC? Then it’s a different story. HMRC will not pay the amounts that the Germans and French will pay but prefer instead to wait and see what eventually arrives free of charge from other tax authorities.
A change in policy to bring the UK in line with France and Germany would quite likely bring in some very significant amounts and provide a massive deterrent. Where is the harm in paying a whistleblower one million if the amount raised is one billion? It compares very well in terms of time and expense to cracking down on benefit fraud.
If the government really had the will to “crackdown on tax evasion in overseas havens” they could do now worse than reviewing this part of the policy.
Well done RM for getting the Tax Gap on the Agenda. Credit deserved where credit due. It is an irony that the LibCon Alliance is (slightly maybe) more serious on Tax evasion than the Labour Party was.
Now let us all (including myself) get on with some productive economic work today to afford to pay our taxes, rather just than saying how much others should pay- It’s always easier to write opinions to say someone else should be paying.
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[…] said before and did again this week, isn’t convinced. But then HMRC published its business plan and made its number one priority saying in its business plan: HM Revenue & Customs’ vision […]
[…] said before and did again this week, isn’t convinced. But then HMRC published its business plan and made its number one priority saying in its business plan: HM Revenue & Customs’ vision […]