The plans to invest £300m over the next five years into HMRC will not scratch the surface to tackle the tax gap, and claims at the Spring Statement of a three-fold return on investment in additional tax revenue seem incredibly ambitious when HMRC has received such a slating by the government and Public Accounts Committee.

Over the last decade, successive governments have poured record levels of funding into HMRC, as well as increased legislative powers to tackle tax evasion and aggressive tax avoidance. But even the head of HMRC Jim Harra has acknowledged that it takes up to three years for an untrained compliance officer to be become fully effective.