Tax crackdown on ‘wealthy' pockets £5bn for Reeves

Telegraph

16-05-2025

The tax office raked in an extra £5.2bn last year as part of a crackdown on wealthy individuals.
In recent years, HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) has zeroed in on high net worth individuals it suspects of underpaying tax.
HMRC defines a wealthy individual as someone earning more than £200,000 a year or with assets over £2m in any of the last three years.
There were 850,000 wealthy individuals in 2023-24 who together paid £119bn in personal taxes – a quarter of the nation's personal tax bill.
Since 2019-20, the amount of revenue HMRC has collected from wealthy individuals through investigations and other compliance work has shot up from £2.2bn to £5.2bn.
In a report out on Friday, the National Audit Office said the significant revenue increase suggested that levels of 'non-compliance' from wealthy individuals could be much higher than previously thought.
HMRC is under growing pressure to raise revenue for the Treasury with Rachel Reeves facing a £57bn black hole in the public finances.
The public spending watchdog urged the tax office to develop 'a clear strategic vision and plan' for tackling errors and avoidance among the wealthy in order to achieve the Government's aim of closing the tax gap.
However, Tim Stovold, of accountancy firm Moore Kingston Smith, said the pool of wealthy taxpayers was likely to have shrunk since the non-dom status was scrapped.
Wealth managers have already reported an increase in clients leaving the UK because of changes to the non-dom regime, which allowed foreigners to avoid paying tax on overseas income.
The Office for Budget Responsibility has projected the tax raid will bring in £33bn for the Treasury, however, it estimates only 12pc of non-doms will leave the UK.
A recent report by the Centre for Economics and Business Research warned that if the proportion exiting the country ends up higher than expected, the non-dom reforms could actually cost the Treasury billions.
Mr Stovold said: 'Now that so many wealthy individuals have indeed left for more benign tax regimes, the tax take due to be collected from this population will already have been severely reduced.'
He went on: 'The report recommending that HMRC develop a clear strategy for tackling non-compliance from the wealthy who remain here, is an approach that must be taken to protect tax revenues – but a balance has to be struck lest the UK is perceived as a hostile place for wealthy people.
'A reputation as a hostile nation will deter the successful and the wealth creators from choosing to make their home here in the future and will encourage more to leave with a corresponding dent in the nation's finances.'
In recent years, HMRC has shifted its focus to high-value investigations. Its 'wealthy team' – responsible for ensuring high net worth individuals pay the right amount of tax – closed almost 9,000 compliance investigations in 2023-24, bringing in £93,800 on average, whereas in 2018-19 it raised £34,000 on average from nearly 16,000 investigations.
Meanwhile, 25 wealthy individuals were prosecuted following a criminal investigation by HMRC, up from five in 2021-22, in a sign the tax office is taking a tougher stance against tax fraud.
The Government has given HMRC funding to recruit 5,500 extra compliance staff over the next five years in a tax crackdown.
Earlier this year, the tax office announced some steps to tackle offshore tax avoidance by the wealthy, including recruiting wealth management experts and deploying artificial intelligence.
The NAO reports on the financial accounts of HMRC every year. It also examines whether it is delivering value for money for the taxpayer.
In another report published earlier this year, it warned that Britain's 'increasingly complex' tax system was costing businesses £15.4bn annually.
HMRC said the report acknowledged the progress it had made to bring in additional revenues from the wealthy, and it would respond formally to the NAO's recommendations by the autumn.
An HMRC spokesman said: 'It is our duty to ensure everyone pays the right tax under the law, regardless of wealth or status. The government is delivering the most ambitious ever package to close the tax gap and bring in an extra £7.5bn for public services per year by 2029-30.'