Asked by: Beth Winter (Labour - Cynon Valley)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether his Department plans to increase the number of HMRC staff working in customer service.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
Our customer service performance is published on a monthly and quarterly basis on GOV.UK here https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/hmrc-monthly-performance-reports)
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/hmrc-quarterly-performance-updates
Asked by: Beth Winter (Labour - Cynon Valley)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he will publish the metrics HMRC uses to monitor its customer service performance.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
Our customer service performance is published on a monthly and quarterly basis on GOV.UK here https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/hmrc-monthly-performance-reports)
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/hmrc-quarterly-performance-updates
Asked by: Beth Winter (Labour - Cynon Valley)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many staff of HM Revenue and Customs work in customer service.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
Our customer service performance is published on a monthly and quarterly basis on GOV.UK here https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/hmrc-monthly-performance-reports)
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/hmrc-quarterly-performance-updates
Asked by: Beth Winter (Labour - Cynon Valley)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what estimate he has made of (a) the total wealth of and (b) the tax gap for taxpayers who have an income greater than £200,000 or assets greater than £2,000,000 since 2010; and what assessment he has made of recent trends in levels of tax avoidance.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) publishes statistics on identified personal wealth in the UK in its Distribution of personal wealth statistics. The Distribution of personal wealth statistics are available at: Distribution of personal wealth statistics - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk). Latest estimates of personal wealth are only available according to the value of the estate and averaged over the period 2014 to 2016.
Details of the individuals wealthy population are available at: Tax by different customer groups – 2021 to 2022 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
HMRC estimates the size of the tax gap, which is the difference between the amount of tax that should, in theory, be paid to HMRC, and what is actually paid. The tax gap statistics are published annually and are available at: Measuring tax gaps - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
The latest estimate of the wealthy customer group tax gap was £1.5 billion for the tax year 2020-21. Historical figures for the tax gap for wealthy customers can be found in table 1.4 of the online tables Measuring tax gaps tables - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
Asked by: Beth Winter (Labour - Cynon Valley)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what estimate his Department has made of HMRC's rate of return on investment for (a) covid-schemes fraud and error and (b) tax compliance recovery.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
At Budget 2021, the Government announced an investment of over £100 million in the Taxpayer Protection Taskforce, to be in place for two years to April 2023, to combat fraud in the COVID-19 financial support schemes administered by His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, Self Employed Income Support Scheme and Eat Out To Help Out). Including amounts recovered through compliance work on the COVID-19 schemes before the taskforce was formed, HMRC expects to recover £1.1bn by September 2023.
On 13 October 2022, HMRC set out their plans in an issue briefing ”HMRC issue briefing: tackling error and fraud in the Covid-19 support schemes” to transition COVID-19 compliance activity to business-as-usual compliance teams by the end of September 2023.
Asked by: Beth Winter (Labour - Cynon Valley)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what estimate his Department has made of the level of investment required in HMRC compliance teams to reduce the size of the tax gap.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
The Government is committed to tackling tax avoidance, evasion, and all other forms of tax non-compliance. Our tax gap is on a long-term downward trend and is among the lowest worldwide, falling from 7.5 per cent in 2005-06 to 5.1 per cent in 2020-21.
HMRC has considerable resources and staff numbers to tackle non-compliance in the tax system. As set out in HMRC’s Annual Report and Accounts, in the last three financial years HMRC’s Customer Compliance Group has spent £3.8 billion on tackling avoidance, evasion and other forms of non-compliance, including £1.2 billion in 2019-20, £1.2 billion in 2020-21, and £1.4 billion in 2021-22.
At Autumn Statement 2022 the Government announced a further £79 million investment to enable HMRC to allocate additional staff to tackle more cases of serious tax fraud and address tax compliance risks among wealthy taxpayers. This is forecast to bring in £725 million of additional revenue over the next five years.
Asked by: Beth Winter (Labour - Cynon Valley)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether his Department plans to increase the HMRC staff working on compliance yield in relation to the tax gap.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
The Government is committed to tackling tax avoidance, evasion, and all other forms of tax non-compliance. Our tax gap is on a long-term downward trend and is among the lowest worldwide, falling from 7.5 per cent in 2005-06 to 5.1 per cent in 2020-21.
HMRC has considerable resources and staff numbers to tackle non-compliance in the tax system. As set out in HMRC’s Annual Report and Accounts, in the last three financial years HMRC’s Customer Compliance Group has spent £3.8 billion on tackling avoidance, evasion and other forms of non-compliance, including £1.2 billion in 2019-20, £1.2 billion in 2020-21, and £1.4 billion in 2021-22.
At Autumn Statement 2022 the Government announced a further £79 million investment to enable HMRC to allocate additional staff to tackle more cases of serious tax fraud and address tax compliance risks among wealthy taxpayers. This is forecast to bring in £725 million of additional revenue over the next five years.
Asked by: Beth Winter (Labour - Cynon Valley)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether HMRC compliance yield staff have a dedicated unit working on wealthy taxpayers who have an income greater than £200,000 or assets greater than £2,000,000.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
HMRC define individuals as ‘wealthy’ if they have incomes of £200,000 or more, or assets equal to or above £2 million in any of the last 3 years. There are approximately 800,000 wealthy customers.
Wealthy customers are managed by the Wealthy Team within HMRC’s Customer Compliance Group. Further information about HMRC’s compliance approach for Wealthy customers can be found here
Overview of how HMRC collects the right tax from wealthy individuals - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
Asked by: Beth Winter (Labour - Cynon Valley)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many HMRC staff work on compliance yield in relation to the tax gap.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
Figures for 2021 to 2022, the latest year for which figures are available, can be found here: Managing tax compliance following the pandemic (nao.org.uk).
Not all staff working in Customer Compliance Group (CCG) will be directly working on compliance activity that closes the tax gap.
CCG brings in the majority, but not all, of HMRC’s compliance yield.
Asked by: Beth Winter (Labour - Cynon Valley)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of HMRC establishing a formal compliance yield target with his Department.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
HMRC’s internal target for compliance yield in 2022-2023 has been set at £36 billion.
HMRC is currently engaging with HM Treasury on its 2023-2024 performance targets.