Paul Flynn – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Paul Flynn on 2015-02-12.

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, on which dates he discussed with senior officials at HM Revenue and Customs whether maximisation of recovery of unpaid tax liabilities from UK residents holding private unregistered accounts offshore should be prioritised ahead of prosecuting alleged offenders.

Mr David Gauke

HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) has a longstanding approach to tax evasion, which is based on collecting the tax and interest due, changing taxpayer behaviour to discourage them from evading in the future, and enforcing the most appropriate and effective penalties. This approach was set out by the then Chancellor of the Exchequer in 2002^[1] and has not changed.

They have a range of enforcement tools at their disposal, including criminal prosecution and civil sanctions. In many cases, and when the evidence supports this, the most appropriate action is to pursue criminal charges.

HMRC therefore use the criminal route where they have the strongest evidence of criminal intent, for serial tax evaders and for people who deliberately conceal information when they are investigated by HMRC.

In 2010 this Government increased the resources available for prosecution and as a result the number of prosecutions has increased by a factor of five.

[1] http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/written_answers/2002/nov/07/tax-fraud

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