Its freedom of information request found that referrals by the HMRC to the Crown Prosecution Service to prosecute individuals have risen sharply in recent years, increasing from 617 in 2012/13 to 795 the following year and then hitting 1,258 in 2014/15, and 1,135 in 2015/16.

However, the HMRC target for referrals for tax evasion charges will remain at 1000 in 2016/17.

The government has made a number of pledges to crack down on tax evasion, including providing HMRC with an additional £800m in 2015 to strengthen compliance and tax evasion work, and the decision in 2016 to set up a cross-agency taskforce with a view to cracking down on cross-border tax evasion.

Morag Rea, head of business crime and investigations at Thomson Reuters, said: ‘Tax evasion is a real area of focus for the Government and HMRC has considerable support in its investigations into the tax affairs of those it suspects of criminal activity.

‘What we continue to see is that HMRC are exceeding their target number of criminal investigations. Whilst these have also lowered slightly in the last year, they continue to be substantially higher than they were four years ago.’

Rea said the focus for prosecutions was now increasingly becoming companies rather than individuals, in part because these tend to be ‘big ticket’ and therefore more efficient for HMRC.

‘While the target for 2016/17 remains at 1000 referrals for prosecution, investigations may be focused on corporate criminality due to the failure to prevent facilitation offences in the Criminal Finances Act 2017 coming into force on 30 September,’ she said.

 Report by Pat Sweet