The NAO-University of Birmingham Tax Centre will bring together both practical and academic expertise using economic, financial and legal evidence, from the UK and internationally.

The centre will look into current tax issues such as the tax gap, the impact of Making Tax Digital, tax evasion and avoidance, customer services and transformation of the tax system.

Previous and new research on tax will be readily available through the tax centre with it aiming to encourage debate, exchange knowledge and stimulate ideas through workshops and conferences.

The NAO and University of Birmingham have previously worked together on Gift Aid. In 2013 the NAO’s report, Gift Aid and reliefs on donations, highlighted the lack of evidence about whether Gift Aid achieves its objective of being a cost-effective way of increasing individual donations to charity in the UK.

Following this, HMRC worked with professor Scharf from the university to analyse 70 million self-assessment tax returns to look into the effectiveness of tax incentives for giving.

The NAO – University of Birmingham Tax Centre website is here. 

Report by Amy Austin