UK Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) published a report on collecting the right tax from wealthy individuals, finding that HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) cannot identify how much tax is paid by UK billionaires and lacks clear evidence on how much tax the very wealthy pay or avoid. The PAC calls on HMRC to publish a plan to increase tax yield from wealthy taxpayers, including wealth held offshore, and to improve its understanding of the wealth and assets held by billionaires. HMRC’s work on wealthy taxpayer compliance brought in GBP 5.2 billion of additional revenue in 2023-24, up from GBP 2.2 billion in 2019-20, but the PAC argues the scale of this increase implies either worsening non-compliance or that prior estimates of avoidance were too low. The report challenges HMRC’s confidence in its estimate of a GBP 1.9 billion “wealthy tax gap” and says HMRC’s partial offshore tax gap estimate of GBP 0.3 billion appears far too low when set against GBP 849 billion held by UK residents in offshore accounts in 2019. It also highlights enforcement indicators including 25 criminal prosecutions of wealthy people in 2023-24, 456 penalties (down from 1,747 in 2022-23), an increasing average time to close investigations, and an average 40-month duration for investigations yielding more than GBP 100,000, alongside no penalties issued to enablers of tax evasion. The PAC asks HMRC to set out how it will improve transparency and measurement, including immediate work to compare publicly available data on known billionaires such as the Sunday Times Rich List with HMRC’s own records, and to assess whether it is using available sanctions and powers sufficiently to tackle non-compliance by the wealthy.
UK Parliament 2025-07-15
UK Parliament's Public Accounts Committee criticises HM Revenue & Customs for lacking data on billionaires’ tax and calls for a plan to increase yield
The UK Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) criticizes HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) for failing to accurately assess tax payments and avoidance by UK billionaires, urging enhanced transparency and tax yield from wealthy individuals, including offshore assets. Despite increased revenue from wealthy taxpayer compliance, the PAC questions HMRC's tax gap estimates and highlights enforcement issues, such as reduced penalties and lengthy investigations. The PAC calls for better utilization of data and sanctions to address non-compliance among the wealthy.