MP, Labour’s Shadow
Chancellor, commenting on HMRC figures showing that
the 2017/18 tax gap was £35 billion, said:
“The tax gap is another reminder of the scale of tax evasion in
this country under a Tory Government – and it is likely to be an
underestimate since it does not capture much tax avoidance or
profit-shifting.
“But the gap is also the product of the Government’s savage cuts
to HMRC, which have deskilled and undermined a key part of the
civil service.
“A Labour Government will be uncompromising in tackling tax
avoidance and evasion, and will implement a comprehensive policy
programme to achieve this aim.”
Ends
Notes to Editors
- · HMRC has today
released figures estimating that the tax gap – “the difference
between the amount of tax that should, in theory, be paid to
HMRC, and what is actually paid” – is £35 billion. HMRC accepts
that the tax gap is a product of miscalculations, as well as
“legal interpretation, evasion, avoidance and criminal attacks”.
This amounts to 5.6% of total theoretical tax liabilities, an
increase of 0.1% from the last figure released in 2016-2017.
See https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/810119/Measuring_tax_gaps_2019_edition.pdf.
- · Labour’s Tax
Transparency and Enforcement Programme (2017) is available
here: https://labour.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Tax-transparency-programme.pdf.
This includes a General Anti-Avoidance Rule and a suite of
other measures to tackle avoidance and evasion.
- · HMRC had 104,000
staff in 2006, and had approximately 60,000 by 2019 (figures from
the Public and Commercial Services Union). It is estimated by PCS
that 17,000 years of experience were lost to HMRC from
redundancies in 2017.
- · Labour’s 2017
manifesto committing to giving HMRC “the resources and skills
necessary to clamp down hard on those unscrupulous few
individuals and companies who seek to avoid the responsibilities
that the rest of us meet”: https://labour.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/labour-manifesto-2017.pdf.
- · Labour also costed
the hiring of “more tax collection staff”: http://labour.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Funding-Britains-Future.pdf
