At a wide-ranging Treasury Committee hearing with the minister, James Murray, who is also the recently government-appointed chair of the HMRC board, Murray told MPs that he has three priorities for HMRC, closing the tax gap, reforming the tax system and thirdly, and most importantly for anyone who deals with HMRC, improving customer service.

In a major breakthrough for the self employed and landlords facing new quarterly reporting requirements and added costs under Making Tax Digital for income tax, the Treasury has signed a deal with Sage accounting software to provide free software for MTD for income tax, also known as MTD for ITSA.