Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many debt collection companies whose accounts are based in offshore tax havens have been hired by HMRC since the start of the covid-19 outbreak.

HMRC do not hire debt collection agencies (DCAs) directly. DCAs are engaged to collect a small proportion of HMRC tax debt via the Debt Market Integrator (DMI) Framework, currently with Indesser. None of the eight DCAs brought onto the HMRC panel (from the framework) is based in offshore tax havens; all are registered and based in the UK. Even though the DCAs are not hired directly by HMRC, as a tax authority HMRC conduct robust compliance checks on each of the DCAs on the panel, on at least an annual basis.