HMRC hauled in almost a third more from each criminal investigation it launched last year, with the average tax take rising from £1.9m in 2016/17 to £2.5m, according to analysis by UHY Hacker Young
The firm calculates the amount of money HMRC makes per investigation has more than doubled over the last five years, up from £1.1m in 2013/14.
The increase follows HMRC’s announcement that it collected an additional £30.3bn in revenues last year through its compliance work.
UHY Hacker Young says HMRC is using increasingly sophisticated techniques in its investigations, such as deploying data analytics to cross reference taxpayer information, which may be improving the average monetary take from them.
Partly through its criminal investigations, HMRC increased its tax take from high and ultra-high net worth individuals by £300m over the last year to £1.2bn, up from £919m in 2016/17.
Sean Glancy, partner at UHY Hacker Young, said: ‘HMRC is seeing better returns from its criminal investigations as it hones its techniques.
‘HMRC has vast swathes of data at its disposal as well as increasingly sophisticated tools to analyse this material and track people down. We can expect the amount of money made per investigation to continue to climb.’
HMRC investigated 140 individuals for offences associated with offshore evasion last year, including four arrests and six interviews under caution relating solely to the 2016 Panama Papers leak.
Glancy said: ‘Offshore tax evasion is makes up a large proportion of criminal investigations and for those taxpayers who still have undeclared assets offshore, time is running out. The deadline for declaring assets is just weeks away and the failure to do so could be hugely costly.’
The new requirement to correct (RTC) initiative to tackle offshore tax non-compliance committed before 6 April 2017 comes into effect at the end of this month.
It requires those with undeclared offshore tax liabilities relating to income tax, capital gains tax or inheritance tax for the relevant periods to disclose those to HMRC on or before 30 September 2018.
An HMRC spokesman said: 'HMRC is highly effective at tackling tax fraud and evasion as our track record shows.
'The truth is everyone must pay what they owe but we want to avoid penalties for those who want to cooperate.
'That is why we are urging UK taxpayers with assets or investments abroad to check whether they have UK tax to pay regardless of receiving contact from HMRC. From 1 October new, substantially higher penalties will apply for those who have failed to declare tax to HMRC on foreign income and assets.'
Report by Pat Sweet
