Asked by: William Bain (Labour - Glasgow North East)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many individuals and companies have been prosecuted for tax evasion in each of the last five financial years.
Answered by David Gauke
HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) is not a prosecuting authority. Where cases do proceed to the criminal courts the prosecution is carried out by the relevant independent prosecuting authority. This is the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) in England and Wales, the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) in Scotland, and the Public Prosecution Service for Northern Ireland (PPSNI). Prosecutions for criminal offences are only instigated against individuals, not companies.
This Government has invested over £917million over this Parliament which has seen the volume of mass market evasion prosecutions implemented as a result of HMRC Criminal Investigations increase fivefold.
The table below shows all prosecutions arising from HMRC criminal investigations including those for money laundering, other prohibitions and restrictions and other non-fiscal offences.
| Year | Total number of persons prosecuted as a result of HMRC Criminal Investigations |
| 2010-11 | 420 |
| 2011-12 | 545 |
| 2012-13 | 770 |
| 2013-14 | 915 |
The following table excludes cases prosecuted for money laundering, other prohibitions and restrictions and other non-fiscal offences as included in the table above and shows prosecutions for tax evasion offences only.
| Year | Total number of persons prosecuted for tax evasion as result of HMRC Criminal Investigations |
| 2010-11 | 372 |
| 2011-12 | 501 |
| 2012-13 | 739 |
| 2013-14 | 880 |
HMRC is not able to supply a time series of full year prosecution decisions and convictions resulting from their criminal investigations for years up to 2009–10. Complete, comparable data is only available from 2010–11 onwards.
Asked by: William Bain (Labour - Glasgow North East)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many staff in HM Revenue and Customs have been assigned to deal with (a) pursuing cases of tax evasion and (b) investigating tax avoidance schemes in each of the last four financial years.
Answered by David Gauke
HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) allocates resources in a flexible manner, so that it maximises performance.
Information on the structure and organisation of HM Revenue and Customs is available at
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/hmrcs-annual-report-and-accounts
Asked by: William Bain (Labour - Glasgow North East)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he will assess the effect on revenues to the Exchequer of buy-to-let landlords (a) being able to offset their bank interest against taxable income, (b) claiming the 10 per cent wear and tear allowance and (c) minimising their exposure to capital gains tax on the sale of properties by use of allowances or reliefs in each of the last three years.
Answered by David Gauke
The information requested is not available.