HMRC under scrutiny from Treasury Sub-Committee

In recent years, HMRC has taken steps to address public concerns about the actions of individuals and businesses determined not to pay their fair share of tax.

It has also launched strategies to address offshore evasion and reduce the use of tax avoidance schemes and has been given a range of new powers to strengthen its hand against tax dodgers and those that design and sell the schemes to help them.

The Chartered Institute for Payroll Professionals (CIPP) said some people question whether HMRC does ’sweetheart deals’ with (and shows preferential treatment to) big business.

The Treasury Sub-Committee will examine whether HMRC has the resources, skills and powers needed to bring about a real change in the behaviour of tax dodgers and those who profit by helping them.

The Treasury Sub-Committee invites the submission of evidence in response to any of the following questions:

•To what extent has there been a shift in tax avoidance and offshore evasion since 2010?

•Have HMRC efforts to reduce avoidance and evasion been successful?

•Is HMRC adequately resourced and sufficiently skilled to identify, challenge and counteract existing and new avoidance schemes and ways of evading tax?

•What progress has it made since 2010 in promoting compliance in this area and preventing and responding to non-compliance?

•What types of avoidance and evasion have been stopped and where do threats to the UK tax base remain?

•What part do the UK’s Crown Dependencies and Overseas Territories play in the avoidance or evasion of tax?

•What more needs to be done to address their use in tax avoidance or tax evasion?

•How has the tax profession responded to concerns about its role in aiding tax avoidance and evasion?

•Where does it see the boundary between acceptable and unacceptable practice lie?

The submission deadline for evidence is May 31 2018.