The firm says that HMRC is concerned that some UK businesses are still avoiding tax in the UK by recording income in countries with zero or near-zero corporation tax. Countries traditionally seen as tax havens include the British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands and Bermuda.

HMRC has now received data on 277 businesses from tax authorities in 12 tax havens over the past year as part of its ‘no or only nominal tax jurisdiction project’. The data will likely relate to a number of earlier years.

Under this initiative tax authorities in tax havens must provide information on the identities, activities and ownership of multinational businesses reporting revenue in their countries to HMRC and other tax authorities within the programme.