In a Public Accounts Committee (PAC) meeting yesterday, HMRC’s chief executive Jim Harra stated that the increased use of private sector debt collectors has made it ‘easier’ for him to plug the staff shortfall at the tax office and will be an important tool in reducing the UK’s current tax debt.

The meeting, which also featured HMRC’s director debt management Marc Gill and chief finance officer Justin Holiday, focused on the National Audit Office’s Managing tax debt through the pandemic report, which highlighted that following the Covid-19 pandemic the UK’s tax debt increased from £16bn in January 2020 to £42bn in September 2021.

The meeting opened with HMRC clarifying that it does not have a statute of limitations to tax debts and would not write them off after a specific time frame as the ‘nature of the arrangements’ does take a long period of time to pay a debt off.

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