More than 1,000 HMRC tax compliance staff had been assigned to work on Brexit cases © Carmen Reichman/FT
Billions of pounds in tax are being left uncollected in the UK as almost 2,300 tax compliance staff at HM Revenue & Customs have been moved to work on Brexit and Covid-19 schemes.
Victoria Atkins, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, acknowledged in response to ministerial questions that 1,043 HMRC tax compliance staff had been assigned to work on Brexit cases in the 2021-22 financial year. He added that a further 1,250 staff, who would normally be working on recovering unpaid taxes, have been moved to work on Covid-19 loan schemes, which have been subject to fraud.
“Civil servants are being moved from one crisis to another in a constant game of whack-a-mole, leaving taxes uncollected and public services starved of cash,” said the Lib Dems, who put the questions to Atkins.
Lib Dem Treasury spokeswoman Sarah Olney said the transfer of 10 per cent of HMRC’s tax compliance deals to Brexit and Covid duties came at a cost to public services.
Atkins revealed that £30.7bn had been recovered through compliance efforts in 2021-22 compared to £36.9bn in 2019-20, the year before the pandemic hit fully, a fall of more than 6,000 million pounds
“This Conservative government is in non-stop firefighting mode because of its gross incompetence, from the failed EU trade deal to the unforgivable mistakes made during the pandemic,” Olney said.
HMRC said: “We move resources where and when they are most needed and our performance is reflected in the fact that we raised a record sum for UK public services last year.
“The National Audit Office has recognized that HMRC’s compliance work provides good value for the taxpayer.”
Find out more about unpaid UK tax here.