This Departmental Overview looks at HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) and summarises its performance during the year ended March 2016, together with our recent reports on it.
HMRC has a special unit to collect tax from high net worth individuals who are those with assets of £20m or more. While this special unit gives it a better understanding of the tax affairs and behaviours of these taxpayers it needs to evaluate what approaches are the most effective and to understand the outcome it achieves.
Amyas Morse, the Comptroller and Auditor General, has today issued a report on the 2015-16 accounts of HM Revenue & Customs.
This memorandum has been prepared to support the Committee of Public Accounts consideration of HMRC’s approach to replacing its contract for IT services with Capgemini, known as Aspire. We set out HMRC’s approach, its business cases and the risks it has to manage. It does not seek to evaluate HMRC’s approach or progress, and therefore does not draw conclusions.
June 2016
HMRC aimed to move more customers online thereby reducing staff costs but significant numbers of staff were let go before technical improvements were completed leading to a collapse in service quality in 2015. Services have since improved.
It is important that the Government ensures its compliance programme reflects the changing risks within the labour market, and maintains its progress in ensuring all employers pay the minimum wage.
HMRC has met its targets to raise more tax revenue in the short-term; however, an estimated £16 billion is lost to tax fraud each year. HMRC needs to improve the way it uses data and analysis to understand the effect of its actions to tackle fraud.
The Scottish Rate of Income Tax will be introduced from 6 April 2016. This report considers the progress HMRC has made so far.
This impacts case study shows that HM Revenue & Customs has implemented more than 80% of our 130 recommendations since 2010, leading to significant reduction in tax avoidance and improvements in accountability and governance regarding tax disputes.
It is one example of financial or non-financial benefits realised in 2014 as a result of our involvement, all of which are set out in our interactive PDF.
The NAO is publishing a suite of short guides, one for each government department, to assist House of Commons Select Committees.
