Big foreign-owned companies are being targeted by HMRC for up to £11bn in underpaid taxes.

Under a Freedom of Information request, HMRC's Large Business Service, responsible for the taxes paid by the 770 largest businesses in the UK, revealed it was probing around £25bn in potentially unpaid tax revenues.

Legal outfit Pinsent Masons said the revelations shot down suggestions that HMRC takes a light touch approach to overseas businesses that operate in the UK.

Its head of tax, Jason Collins, said: 'HMRC actively targets foreign-owned companies within the UK to see if they owe any extra tax.

'There is a popular myth that HMRC and the Treasury are so easily charmed by the presence of foreign companies in the UK that they are happy to accept any tax payment that they get. That could hardly be further from the truth.'

'Tax under consideration' is the tax that HMRC believes should be paid by the country's biggest firms and includes potentially underpaid tax and the risk to the Exchequer from companies litigating over amounts of tax they have overpaid.

HMRC believes that up to 44% of these taxes are owed by overseas-based businesses, depriving the Treasury of much-needed funds to help boost the UK's flagging economy, currently stuck in a double-dip recession.