Covid taxpayer protection taskforce members all from within HMRC

The government’s £100m investment in the Covid taxpayer protection taskforce consisted of the re-tasking of existing HMRC staff from other duties according to data obtained from HMRC under a freedom of information request by tax consultants Andersen in the UK.

The £100m is broadly equivalent to HMRC’s existing payroll for the staff members transferred to the taskforce.

Andrew Park tax investigations partner at Andersen in the UK said: ‘The much-trumpeted £100m "investment" in a Covid taxpayer protection taskforce was clearly just political spin. It is also hard to believe that HMRC is able to fill the donor departments during the two-year lifetime of the taskforce – after which staff will be back to other duties anyway.’

The data shows that the taskforce consists of 1 265 people of whom 1 101 were full-time equivalent on 31 January 2022. There were no external appointments from...