HMRC has updated its single departmental plan, setting out the authority’s objectives for 2019. The latest performance figures will be updated following publication of HMRC’s annual report and accounts for 2018/19.
The latest set of objectives to ‘bear down on tax avoidance and evasion’ include:
continuing to invest £800m in additional work to tackle evasion and non-compliance in the tax system, with a further £155m of investment announced at Autumn Budget 2017 for future years up to 2019 to 2020;
raising an additional £5bn a year on 2015 to 2016 by 2019 to 2020 by tackling tax avoidance and aggressive tax planning, evasion and non-compliance, and by addressing imbalances in the tax system;
making it harder for businesses to operate in the hidden economy by using new bulk data powers to identify risks in different sectors of the economy to improve our operational response;
increasing HMRC’s ability to prevent alcohol and tobacco smuggling including further funding to tackle illicit tobacco and illicit alcohol;
continuing to tackle tax avoidance, close schemes and collect yield of more than £170m in 2019 to 2020 through the accelerated payments regime and collect yield of £1.3bn in tax settlements; and
ensuring global companies pay their fair share in tax by supporting the government’s leading role in the reform of international tax rules.
HMRC appears to have dropped the specific target contained in the previous plan to increase prosecutions of serious and complex tax crime to 100 a year by the end of the Parliament.
Also absent from the new plan is the focus on resolving disputes ‘by agreement or through litigation, whichever best secures the tax that is legally due’.
On 18 June, HMRC chief executive, Sir Jonathan Thompson, wrote to the chair of the Commons Treasury committee, acknowledging problems with the making tax digital for VAT helpline. Annexed to the letter was a breakdown of call waiting times for January to May 2019. This showed an average speed of answer during May of 16 minutes, against a target of five minutes. HMRC’s telephony performance ‘has been impacted by ongoing recruitment and staffing shortfalls’, Sir Jonathan said. Staffing levels have now increased and Sir Jonathan confirmed that HMRC, ‘aim to achieve at or around our 5-minute monthly average speed of answer target and maintain this thereafter ensuring normal service for the first significant quarterly filing deadline for MTD on 7 August’.
HMRC has updated its single departmental plan, setting out the authority’s objectives for 2019. The latest performance figures will be updated following publication of HMRC’s annual report and accounts for 2018/19.
The latest set of objectives to ‘bear down on tax avoidance and evasion’ include:
continuing to invest £800m in additional work to tackle evasion and non-compliance in the tax system, with a further £155m of investment announced at Autumn Budget 2017 for future years up to 2019 to 2020;
raising an additional £5bn a year on 2015 to 2016 by 2019 to 2020 by tackling tax avoidance and aggressive tax planning, evasion and non-compliance, and by addressing imbalances in the tax system;
making it harder for businesses to operate in the hidden economy by using new bulk data powers to identify risks in different sectors of the economy to improve our operational response;
increasing HMRC’s ability to prevent alcohol and tobacco smuggling including further funding to tackle illicit tobacco and illicit alcohol;
continuing to tackle tax avoidance, close schemes and collect yield of more than £170m in 2019 to 2020 through the accelerated payments regime and collect yield of £1.3bn in tax settlements; and
ensuring global companies pay their fair share in tax by supporting the government’s leading role in the reform of international tax rules.
HMRC appears to have dropped the specific target contained in the previous plan to increase prosecutions of serious and complex tax crime to 100 a year by the end of the Parliament.
Also absent from the new plan is the focus on resolving disputes ‘by agreement or through litigation, whichever best secures the tax that is legally due’.
On 18 June, HMRC chief executive, Sir Jonathan Thompson, wrote to the chair of the Commons Treasury committee, acknowledging problems with the making tax digital for VAT helpline. Annexed to the letter was a breakdown of call waiting times for January to May 2019. This showed an average speed of answer during May of 16 minutes, against a target of five minutes. HMRC’s telephony performance ‘has been impacted by ongoing recruitment and staffing shortfalls’, Sir Jonathan said. Staffing levels have now increased and Sir Jonathan confirmed that HMRC, ‘aim to achieve at or around our 5-minute monthly average speed of answer target and maintain this thereafter ensuring normal service for the first significant quarterly filing deadline for MTD on 7 August’.
