Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many high net worth individuals have been placed under criminal investigation for tax affairs in each year since 2009.

The information requested can be found in the 2016 National Audit Office Report on “HMRC’s approach to collecting tax from high net worth individuals” at Part 3, paragraph 3.10 – 3.12:

“3.10 Where an enquiry identifies suspected fraud by a high net worth taxpayer the case must be referred to HMRC’s Fraud Investigation Service. Each case will be considered for criminal investigation. Where HMRC believes there is insufficient evidence to prove a criminal offence has been committed, it can carry out a civil investigation to recover the unpaid tax and interest, and charge penalties. Figure 14 shows the results of cases referred to the Fraud Investigation Service by the high net worth unit since 2011-12 that have resulted in a civil enquiry and settlement.

3.11 HMRC gathers evidence against people but does not prosecute them itself.3 It is the prosecuting authorities who decide whether to prosecute a case, based on the strength of evidence and whether a prosecution is in the public interest. Since 2009, two cases involving high net worth individuals have been passed to the Crown Prosecution Service. One case was taken up by the Crown Prosecution Service and successfully prosecuted. This was for inheritance tax evasion and was connected to the data about account holders that was leaked from HSBC’s Swiss bank. These data showed that the taxpayer had made false statements about the extent of their overseas assets. The second case was not taken up due to insufficient evidence. At October 2016 HMRC was criminally investigating a further 10 high net worth individuals.

3.12 HMRC received funding as part of the 2015 Summer Budget to triple the number of criminal investigations that it can undertake into serious and complex tax crime, focusing particularly on wealthy individuals and corporates. Its aim is to increase the number of its cases accepted by prosecuting authorities in this area to 100 a year by the end of the Parliament. There is no specific target for an increase in the number of criminal investigations into high net worth individuals as part of this commitment”.

As of 3rd April 2017, HMRC have brought together their High Net Worth Unit and Affluent teams to form a single Wealthy team. This organisational change is promoting tax compliance and tackling non-compliance across the whole of the wealthy customer group. These changes will ensure we deploy our specialist, highly skilled resource on those wealthy individuals that present the highest compliance risk.