Digest opened free editor
Rola Khaleda, FT editor, chooses her favorite stories in this weekly newsletter.
The volume of avoiding taxes and evasion by the wealthy may be much higher than the UK tax authority, which previously believed, a report issued by the National Audit Office found.
The wealthy, who were identified by HM Revenue & Customs as those who earn more than 200,000 pounds annually or with the assets of more than 2 million pounds, are 119 billion pounds in personal taxes in 2023-24, at a rate of 140,000 pounds per person. The amount represents 25 percent of the UK personal tax receipts.
But the complexity of most of the affairs of most of the wealthy made it difficult for HMRC to determine the tax that you owe and provided them with intentions intentionally to avoid paying the right amount, and NAO warned in a a report Friday.
The report said that in 2022-23 HMRC estimated the “tax gap” between this group-the difference between the tax amount that should be paid and what was already paid-only 1.9 billion pounds.
However, I found that HMRC had later doubled the annual “compliance revenue” of wealthy individuals from 2.2 billion pounds in 2019-20 to 5.2 billion pounds in 2023-24. The term refers to the tax revenues collected by HMRC because of its work to ensure compliance.
The numbers showed that HMRC collected more taxes than it was previously thought, according to the report.
“This raises the possibility that the levels behind the non -compliance between the wealthy population will be much greater than it was previously thought,” said a NAO report.
Despite the growth in the population of the wealthy, the number of criminal prosecutions on unpaid taxes and HMRC sanctions to the wealthy has decreased in recent years.
Gareth Davis, President of NAO, said that HMRC deserves credit to significantly increase additional tax revenues that compliance with the wealthy taxpayers.
But he added: “This may indicate that the levels of non -compliance are higher than the ability previously. HMRC must also seek more transparency to give more confidence to the public that all taxpayers contribute to their fair share.”
The report also dealt with issues related to tax evasion and avoiding wealthy people who have origins abroad, which NAO said HMRC has recognized it as major risks.
The report said HMRC General appreciation This track lost 300 million pounds through this path in 2018-19, the last year available, not completely obtained the amount of possible tax.
The report indicated that the UK tax residents retain 849 billion pounds in external accounts in 2019.
Meanwhile, the tax office only specified a “limited strategy” to address tax evasion and avoid wealthy people, Naw said.
In the autumn government budget I provided funding The report indicated that 5500 HMRC compliance staff over the next five years. However, she said that the tax office had not yet had a clear plan to ensure that the team gets the skilled employees he needs.
Among the many recommendations, the HMRC report called for a “clear vision and strategic plan” to address the wealthy compliance and provide “sufficient transparency to give greater confidence” to the public.
Caitlin Boswell, Head of Da`wah and Politics at Justice JUSTICE UK, a campaign group, noticed the increasing gap between the tax due by the richest people and what has already been paid.
She said: “This is because of things like secret tax havens abroad used to store assets that do not displace tax authority.”
She also blamed the problem for the wealthy use of tax agents to exploit “gaps in the system”.
HMRC said it is its duty to ensure that each person pushed the correct tax under the law, “regardless of wealth or situation.”
He added: “The government connects the most ambitious package to fill the tax gap and bring an additional 7.5 billion pounds to public services annually by 2029-30.”
https://www.ft.com/__origami/service/image/v2/images/raw/https%3A%2F%2Fd1e00ek4ebabms.cloudfront.net%2Fproduction%2F889ab68a-7135-433c-8526-dd9fe1e29cb9.jpg?source=next-article&fit=scale-down&quality=highest&width=700&dpr=1
Source link