HMRC 24 Billion Additional Tax Collected

HMRC 24 Billion Additional Tax Collected.

Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) has released figures that it collected a record £23.9bn in additional tax revenue for tax year 2012/13 following its crack down on tax evasion.

HMRC has actively been given more powers over the years, has challenged many cases in court and is even now soon to be given more powers to take money from our bank accounts first and agree/argue the tax due later – a so called “tax stick” to force people and companies to the table to talk about any tax dispute rather than delaying it as the money will have already been taken/paid.  In addition, information disclosure agreements between countries and tax havens with them disclosing information on accounts held overseas by individuals and companies to HMRC.

The additional tax take is £3.1billion higher than the previous year and £1bn higher than forecast.

HMRC also forecasts an addition tax take over 5 years for £100bn+ from 2010 to 2015 from all of its additional powers including tax avoidance investigations. 

Comment

HMRC has always had a position that “the facts are the facts”.  They are there to enforce tax law i.e. if tax is due it is due.  We have no problem with working within tax law and never use complex structures but HMRC can be unhelpful even with simplistic yes-no questions when we need guidance to advise clients.

If you ask for help or guidance on a particular point of tax law, they are usually non-committal, they say they are not there to offer tax advice.  We believe this is wrong.  As tax advisers, most tax law is clear but there will always be cases where the position is a “grey area”, to then ask HMRC for a ruling is difficult to achieve.