Stephen Phillips – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Stephen Phillips on 2016-02-24.

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what steps his Department is taking to increase the number of successful prosecutions for tax evasion.

Mr David Gauke

At Summer Budget 2015, the Government announced an investment of £800 million to tackle non‑compliance and tax evasion.

This investment includes £266 million and 670 new HMRC staff to tackle tax fraud, which will lead to a tripling of the number of criminal investigations into the most serious and complex tax crimes.

The Government is also consulting on new criminal powers to tackle offshore tax evasion and corporate facilitation of tax evasion.

This all builds on the Government’s earlier investment into HMRC, which enabled the Department to achieve a seven-fold increase in the number of prosecutions over the course of the last parliament and contributed to the protection over £2 billion of vital public revenue last year.