I am quoted by Larry Elliott in the Guardian this afternoon on the tax gap:
The accountant and tax expert Richard Murphy says: “Reeves could raise billions by closing the tax gap, but not by looking offshore to find it. The tax gap is in the cities, towns and villages of the UK where small businesses aren't paying large amounts of what they owe.
“If she wants to collect that money – and support honest business by doing so – then she needs to reopen the UK's local tax offices and put VAT inspectors back on the road, checking that business really pay. Nothing else can work.”
Murphy believes HMRC is under-estimating the size of the tax gap, which he says could be as high as £90bn. He thinks Labour should establish an independent office for tax responsibility to monitor delivery and ensure HMRC doesn't “mark its own homework”.
The overall opinion that Larry finds from the interviews he did? That Reeves is being an optimist, although the reasons vary. But no one seems to doubt that more investment in HM Revenue & Customs is necessary.
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The Bank of England is supposed to be independent, and they’ve shafted the public and funnelled money to the financial sector.
How can we be sure that an independent office for tax responsibility will work for the people, and not the well-off?
The NAO seems to work….
@ Ian Tresman
That’s the big question of how the British can stop themselves repeatedly voting for grifter politicians!
It’s great you are getting a bit of recognition at long last
I think you’ve missed twenty years of recognition….
Certainly most business people I talked to recognised that VAT inspectors were ‘thorough’
Richard!
I just wanted to thank you for your brilliant report. You have made an amazing and timely contribution which I think will make Labour sit up and take notice.
The days of politicians pulling the wool over eyes have come to an end thanks to you.
As with Brexit , the pressure has to be maintained – actually, ramped up. We can never again allow politics to be ‘done to us’. The next elective dictatorship looms, we’ve got our work cut out.
Thank you again.
John
(@sonofr)
Thank you John
Richard, you really have a great deal of educating to do, Brexit showed how easily people can be hoodwinked into believing there are simple solutions to complex problems, particularly when there are technical issues that they don’t understand.
It’s important to have experts who we can trust to guide us, thanks for your great, unbiased work on this. You really should be involved in advising the new government on this – is that a possibility?
Stuart
Up to them!