Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their latest estimate of the amount of tax lost to the Exchequer through tax avoidance and evasion measures.

HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) publish estimates of the tax gap in Measuring Tax Gaps each year. The 2014 edition^[1] (published on 16 October 2014) presents a time series of tax gaps from 2005-06 to 2012-13.

Measuring Tax Gaps includes an illustrative breakdown of the tax gap by behaviour, including avoidance and evasion. In 2012-13 avoidance was estimated to cost the exchequer £3.1 billion, and evasion to cost £4.1 billion.

Since 2010-11 the percentage tax gap has stayed lower than at any point under the previous government, saving the country £4 billion. The figures in Measuring Tax Gaps show that there’s still more work to do but our continued drive to tackle avoidance means that avoidance is down.

During the last Parliament, as a result of actions to tackle evasion, avoidance and non-compliance, HMRC will have secured £100 billion in additional compliance revenue. This includes more than £31 billion from big businesses and £1.2 billion extra from the UK’s richest people.

The UK has one of the lowest tax gaps in the world but HMRC will continue to deploy its resources and skills to maintain the downward pressure that has proved so effective in recent years.