Big businesses likely to bear the brunt of HMRC investigations

Large businesses are HMRC’s best target for tax investigations with every pound spent on investigating them yielding £56 in extra tax last year according to analysis by Pinsent Masons. This is much higher than for any other type of investigation HMRC undertakes.

The tax authority believes there may still be a considerable amount of tax going unpaid by Britain’s biggest businesses. The tax gap for large businesses last year stood at £3.6bn.

Steven Porter partner and head of tax disputes and investigations said: ‘With HMRC seeing such an enormous rate of return from investigating the biggest businesses they can expect to continue to have to deal with HMRC’s compliance teams. It’s far more efficient for HMRC to get extra tax from a small number of large businesses than it is to get it from a huge number of individuals.’

However HMRC has also...