State of tax administration: Rising tax debts, falling customer services and misfiring compliance

TaxWatch recently published our latest state of tax administration report analysing data from the HMRC annual report and accounts together with freedom of information requests for the 2023-24 year.

The report highlights many of the challenges faced by HMRC and tax agents interacting with the department on behalf of clients. Problems with staff retention poor customer service and ongoing tax compliance issues will make unhappily familiar reading. We summarise some of the main findings from our report in what was a tumultuous year for HMRC.

Mind the gap!

The tax gap was given a great deal of attention in the run up to the election as the magic money tree for increasing tax revenues. It is an estimate produced by HMRC on a yearly basis that measures the taxes collected by HMRC compared to the theoretical liability which should be collectable.

In the...