The UK border: preparedness for EU exit update
Published on:This memorandum supports the Public Accounts Committee’s examination of the government’s preparedness for ‘no deal’
This memorandum supports the Public Accounts Committee’s examination of the government’s preparedness for ‘no deal’
The NAO have investigated concerns that online sellers outside the EU are avoiding charging VAT.
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.
Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs continues to make progress in ensuring that income tax levied under the Scottish rate will be assessed and collected properly, but still faces significant challenges to ensure that all Scottish taxpayers are correctly identified
HMRC has made progress in developing the new customs system, which was part of its existing programme, but it may need to be ready much earlier than originally planned if there is no agreement extending timescales on the transition to any new customs arrangements
Amyas Morse, the Comptroller and Auditor General, has today issued a report on the 2015-16 accounts of HM Revenue & Customs.
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.
By reducing the number of its offices and moving to a regional centre model HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) hopes to significantly reduce its running costs and modernise the way it works. HMRC’s original plan has proved unrealistic and is now reconsidering the scope and timing of the programme. Any changes will need to be carefully managed to avoid diminishing the long term value of the strategy.
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.
HM Revenue & Customs’ (HMRC’s) contract with Synnex-Concentrix UK Ltd was terminated in November 2016. The contract was designed to add capacity to HMRC’s programme of interventions to prevent or detect error and fraud in personal tax credits awards. HMRC estimated that the contract would save £1 billion over its three year life time and an estimated £193 million, excluding Concentrix’s costs, had been saved by the time of contract termination.
Amyas Morse, the Comptroller and Auditor General, has today issued a report on the 2014-15 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
The government continues to lose large amounts of money through fraud and error overpayments and many vulnerable people get less support than they are entitled to.
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.
There are more than 1000 tax reliefs in the UK tax system. The NAO intends to carry out future work evaluating how they are developed and implemented.
HM Treasury and HMRC do not keep track of tax reliefs intended to change behaviour, or adequately report to Parliament on whether tax reliefs work as expected.