Recently HMRC endured MP’s disapproval over “unacceptably slow” efforts to combat income tax avoidance.
This month Jennie Granger, HMRC’s director general for enforcement and compliance, has been able to announce that recent results “show HMRC is making good progress in tackling income tax avoidance”.
She is referring to the £29 million that has been paid to HMRC by those who have received an ‘accelerated payment notice’. HMRC was given permission to hand out these APNs as part of their package of new powers in July’s Finance Bill. HMRC published a list of the 1,172 avoidance schemes that they are currently investigating in the same month. This was to warn members of these schemes, and their financial advisers, to expect an accelerated payments notice.
The implementation of these notices has been hailed a success because they have recouped 99% of the demanded money. The Treasury Financial Secretary supports this by saying, “The success rate for the first set of accelerated payments notices shows avoidance scheme users are having to face up to the reality that they should pay their tax upfront, like the majority of taxpayers.” David Gauke looks forward to more of the same in the future; “As we move into 2015 and HMRC ramps up the number of notices it sends out, thousands more will get the message that accelerated payment has changed the economics of tax avoidance.”
