In its annual report and accounts for 2025-26 HMRC stated it wrote off or abandoned £12.8bn of unpaid tax in 2025-26, a 77% increase on the previous year, despite reporting record tax revenues and a record compliance yield.

‘Tax losses’, as HMRC puts it, refer to debts that cannot be collected and are therefore classified as either ‘write-offs’ or ‘remissions’.

These types of tax losses increased from £7.2bn in 2024-25, to £12.8bn in 2025-26, an increase of 77%.

For money owed, but for which there are no means of pursuing the debt, HMRC classes this as a write-off, which equalled £9.7bn in 2025-26.

Remissions are defined as money owed to HMRC that it has decided not to pursue any further. These totalled £3.1bn.