Tulip Siddiq – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tulip Siddiq on 2016-05-03.

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, with reference to tables 1.2 and 1.4 of HM Revenue and Customs’ document, Measuring tax gaps, published in October 2013, what assessment HM Revenue and Customs has made of the reasons for which the corporation tax gap for large businesses has narrowed as a percentage while the overall percentage tax gap for large businesses has remained the same since 2009-10; and if he will estimate the large business tax gap for each tax in each year since 2009-10.

Mr David Gauke

HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) published its latest tax gap estimates on 22 October 2015 in Measuring tax gaps 2015 edition, which is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/470540/HMRC-measuring-tax-gaps-2015-1.pdf

Tables 1.2 and 1.4 of the Measuring tax gaps 2015 edition show different information. Table 1.2 looks specifically at the large business Corporation Tax gap as a percentage of theoretical liabilities for large business Corporation Tax, and Table 1.4 expresses the tax gap for all large businesses taxes (including VAT and income taxes) as a percentage of all theoretical liabilities for all HMRC customer groups. Trends in tax gaps for specific taxes and customer groups are different.

Measuring Tax Gaps does not include full detailed segmentation, such as the requested large business customer group by type of tax, as a number of segments at this level are not sufficiently robust for publication. Table 6.9 on page 53 provides information on the estimated tax gap for large employers.