HMRC has published its single departmental plan setting out its objectives for the year and how they will be achieved, including making greater use of criminal prosecutions to tackle tax avoidance and evasion
The department is committed to three key objectives. These are to maximise revenues and bear down on avoidance and evasion; to transform tax and payments, and to design and deliver a professional, efficient and engaged organisation.
Under the plan, HMRC will invest £800m into additional work to tackle evasion and non-compliance in the tax system, with an additional £155m of investment announced at Budget 2017 for future years up to 2019-20.
A further 2,000 individuals with net wealth between £10m and £20m will be included in HMRC’s high net worth unit. The department also plans to increase the number of criminal investigations into serious and complex tax crime, focusing particularly on wealthy individuals and corporates, with the aim of increasing prosecutions in this area to 100 a year by the end of the Parliament.
However, the plan states that HMRC will deliver compliance revenues of £28bn in 2017/18, which is the same level as previously reported for the period up to 31 March 2017.
HRMC says it will also work to ensure global companies pay their fair share of tax by supporting government’s role in the reform of international tax rules, and will review the international country-by-country tax reporting rules and consider the case for making this information publicly available on a multilateral basis.
The department plan includes a £1.3bn spend to transform HMRC to become a ‘digital-by-default’ organisation, with aim of accelerating efforts to shift taxpayers to using digital services. Data shows 83% of taxpayers are satisfied with digital services currently compared to a target of 80%
Regarding Brexit, the plan states that HMRC will work to ‘ensure a smooth and orderly EU exit’, which includes ensuring the Customs Declaration System is ready on time.
The department also pledges to ‘continue to make consistent positive progress’ towards achieving the Civil Service employee engagement index benchmark (59% in 2016). HMRC’s score was 47% in that year.
