Asked by: Sarah Green (Liberal Democrat - Chesham and Amersham)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what further steps he (a) is considering and (b) plans to take to help improve the ability of Companies House to (i) identify people attempting to evade (A) tax liabilities and (B) other responsibilities and (ii) hold those people accountable.
Answered by Justin Madders - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade)
Companies House is working with HMRC and Insolvency Service to identify the outcomes required to achieve an impact on the drivers of tax evasion, and assess the activities and resources required to deliver those outcomes. This expands on existing work that is strengthening our ability to target abuse of the register and tax system, increasing our ability to tackle tax evasion with greater visibility and accuracy of customer data. This work involves intelligence sharing between the organisations, and informs Companies House’s ongoing threat assessment.
We have no plans at present to require companies to provide VAT numbers to Companies House.
Asked by: Sarah Green (Liberal Democrat - Chesham and Amersham)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, whether he has considered adding a VAT number field to the Companies House online register to help tackle (a) corporate fraud and (b) tax evasion.
Answered by Justin Madders - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade)
Companies House is working with HMRC and Insolvency Service to identify the outcomes required to achieve an impact on the drivers of tax evasion, and assess the activities and resources required to deliver those outcomes. This expands on existing work that is strengthening our ability to target abuse of the register and tax system, increasing our ability to tackle tax evasion with greater visibility and accuracy of customer data. This work involves intelligence sharing between the organisations, and informs Companies House’s ongoing threat assessment.
We have no plans at present to require companies to provide VAT numbers to Companies House.
Asked by: Sarah Green (Liberal Democrat - Chesham and Amersham)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what assessment has been made of the potential merits of adding the removals sector to a minister's responsibility in his Department.
Answered by Justin Madders - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade)
The Minister for Services, Small Business and Exports has overall responsibility for business services across government. The full list of Ministerial Responsibilities is available on GOV.UK here.
Asked by: Sarah Green (Liberal Democrat - Chesham and Amersham)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of banning imports of oil products from refineries using Russian crude.
Answered by Douglas Alexander - Minister of State (Cabinet Office)
The UK has worked closely with international partners to constrain Russian oil revenues while maintaining energy market security. The Government does not speculate on future sanctions measures as to do so could reduce their impact. We continue to monitor the effectiveness of our sanctions.
Asked by: Sarah Green (Liberal Democrat - Chesham and Amersham)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, if he will make an assessment of the potential impact of planned increases to audit exemption thresholds on rates of tax evasion.
Answered by Justin Madders - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade)
The proposal to increase the monetary thresholds for company size are based on findings from a call for evidence on non-financial reporting, which the Department for Business and Trade undertook last year. Most respondents supported amending the qualifying criteria that determine company size, particularly raising the monetary thresholds.
Under the proposals around 14,000 companies will be reclassified from medium-sized to small and therefore may be eligible for the small company audit exemption. Many of these companies are owned and operated by family members, who are well-versed in the company’s operations. The benefits of audit are more limited for such businesses.
Asked by: Sarah Green (Liberal Democrat - Chesham and Amersham)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of adopting the International Standard on Auditing for Audits of Financial Statements of Less Complex Entities.
Answered by Justin Madders - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade)
It is for the Financial Reporting Council (FRC) to decide whether the International Standard on Auditing for Audits of Financial Statements of Less Complex Entities (ISA for LCE) provides proper and proportionate scrutiny of financial statements. The Government expects to see the FRC act in line with the requirements placed on it to consider the proportionality of its decisions and its impacts on economic growth. These requirements will continue to apply to the new Audit, Reporting and Governance Authority (ARGA) once it is created.