Tax receipts for 2020-21 totalled £585bn, according to HMRC's latest figures

Provisional performance results for financial year 2020-21 reveal that HMRC collected £191bn in tax during quarter four compared with the £176.4bn collected during the same period in 2019-20. However for the whole financial year HMRC collected £585bn in tax – lower than the £633.4bn collected in 2019-20.

The report states that the pandemic affected HMRC’s debt balance but much of this was due to the choices the government made to support taxpayers by temporarily deferring payments. The VAT deferral scheme for example allowed businesses to defer almost 600 000 payments of VAT. By the end of March 2021 HMRC also had 864 000 time-to-pay arrangements in place.

As for debt generally at the end of the financial year HMRC held £57.5bn of debt - around £35bn more than this time last year but £8bn less than at...