Rushanara Ali – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Rushanara Ali on 2016-04-22.

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment he has made of the potential effect of reductions in HM Revenue and Customs funding on efforts to tackle tax evasion and avoidance.

Mr David Gauke

In the last Parliament, more than 40 changes were made to tax law, closing down loopholes and introducing major reforms to the UK tax-system. These measures are estimated to have raised over £12 billion by the end of 2015-16.

At Summer Budget 2015, the government gave HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) an extra £800 million to fund additional work to tackle evasion and non-compliance by 2020-21. This will enable HMRC to recover a cumulative £7.2 billion in tax over the next five years by tackling evasion and non-compliance. It is committed to raising an additional £5 billion a year through tackling tax avoidance, aggressive tax planning, tax evasion, non-compliance and imbalances in the tax system by 2019-20.