The government loses more than £2bn a year through tax evasion but there is only a 'minimal' chance of fraudsters getting caught, a group of MPs claims. The House of Commons Public Accounts Committee said only 1.5% of non-payers were being caught, and many of the penalties imposed were 'relatively trifling'. The cross-party committee said Revenue & Customs officials were struggling in their efforts to crack down on the UK's 'cash-in-hand' culture. In a report, HMRC: Tackling the Hidden Economy, the PAC called on the Revenue to do more to publicise the potentially serious consequences of tax evasion. The PAC said there were no reliable estimates of the tax lost through the hidden economy, but said it could be more than £2bn a year and involve about 2m people. The committee added that the Revenue had had some success at motivating people with offshore accounts to voluntarily pay the tax they owed. It should devise similar schemes to persuade those in other risk areas, such as self-employed builders and buy-to-let landlords.