HMRC 'doesn't know' how many billionaires pay tax in the UK
The Public Accounts Committee says this is despite the fact only a small number of people have this status - and the significant sums of money involved.
HMRC has been told it "can and must" do more to understand how much the very wealthiest in society contribute to the public purse, as "there is a lot of money being left on the table".
Artificial intelligence and The Sunday Times Rich List were identified as two ways of getting a clearer picture.
The taxman is facing calls to reveal how it plans to increase contributions from billionaires both domestically and offshore, amid a squeeze in the public finances.
MPs added: "There is much public interest in the amount of tax the wealthy pay. People need to know everyone pays their fair share."
The report pointed to the US, where the Internal Revenue Service links its data to the Forbes 400 list of rich Americans.
PAC member Lloyd Hatton added: "This report is not concerned with political debate around the redistribution of wealth.
"Our committee's role is to help HMRC do its job properly, ensuring wealthy people pay the correct tax.
"While HMRC does deserve some great credit for securing billions more in the tax take from the wealthiest in recent years, there is still a very long way to go before we can reach a true accounting of what is owed."
Read more money news:
Mr Hatton added that the committee was "disappointed" that HMRC could not offer any insights into the tax arrangements of billionaires from its own data - as "any single one of these individuals' contributions could make a significant difference to the overall picture".
At present, about 1,000 people within HMRC are focused on the tax affairs of the UK's wealthiest, but funding has been secured to increase this headcount by 400 - with a view to "increasing prosecutions of those who evade tax".
A spokesperson added: "The government is determined to make sure everyone pays the tax they owe.
"Extra resources were announced in the recent spending review which allows us to significantly step up our work on closing the tax gap among the wealthiest."
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
8 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Look inside this 'luxury' detached home in Bolton which is on the market
A detached home on the edge of the countryside is on the market. The five-bedroom house is located in Broad Meadow in Bromley Cross. Described as luxurious, the property sits in a cul-de-sac and includes three reception rooms. Carpeted living room with front-facing window, multi-fuel stove, and access to the dining area through glazed wooden doors (Image: Zoopla) It also has an office and a conservatory, offering "ample space for family gatherings or entertaining guests". The ground floor features an entrance hall with tiled flooring, a cloakroom with a two-piece suite, and an office or study with a window to the front aspect. In the lounge, there is a multi-fuel stove set in the chimney breast and connects to the dining room through part-glazed hardwood doors. Fitted kitchen with oak-finish units, tiled flooring, integrated appliances, and a window overlooking the rear garden (Image: Zoopla) The dining room leads to the conservatory, which has double-glazed windows, patio doors to the rear garden, tiled flooring, a wall-mounted heater, and an air conditioning unit. Fitted with wall and base units in a light oak finish, the kitchen includes under lighting and integrated appliances such as a mid-range electric oven, grill, built-in microwave, and a five-ring gas hob with extractor hood. There is space for a fridge/freezer and an integrated dishwasher. Family bathroom with a double-ended bath (Image: Zoopla) A utility area is located within the integral garage, which has an electric up-and-over door and a wall-mounted boiler. There is also a hobby room with fitted base units, and loft access is also on the ground floor. Upstairs, the master bedroom has built-in wardrobes and an ensuite with a double shower enclosure, vanity unit, and tiled splash-back walls. Bedroom with fitted wardrobes, neutral décor, and access to an en-suite shower room (Image: Zoopla) Four additional bedrooms are served by a family bathroom with a double-ended bath, walk-in shower, and built-in storage. Outside, the house is surrounded by landscaped gardens. The front garden is mainly lawn with mature shrubs and a block-paved pathway. A block-paved driveway provides off-road parking and leads to the integral garage. Rear garden with Indian stone patio, lawn, mature borders, and fencing for enclosure (Image: Zoopla)READ MORE: The Royal Mint 50p coin selling for 360 times its face value - how to spot Expert shares budget-friendly 52p hack that keeps rats away from your garden Bolton cancer choir seeking new treasurer - 'not easy to replace' The south-facing rear garden features Indian stone paving, a patio area, mature borders, and fencing for privacy. Described as 'ideal for families', the listing highlights the property's proximity to amenities in the area, country parks, schools, and Bromley Cross railway station. The listing on Zoopla reads: "The property includes three reception rooms, an office, and a large conservatory, providing ample space for family gatherings or entertaining guests. "The master bedroom benefits from an ensuite, adding a touch of luxury to everyday living." The property is on the market for £585,000. More information about the property can be found on The Agency UK website.
New York Times
10 minutes ago
- New York Times
Inside the world of sporting directors: What do they do? And what makes a good one?
Players are the focus of any football transfer storyline. Managers, agents and club owners add to the intrigue, of course, but it's a relatively new role which has been garnering increased attention with every transfer window — the sporting director. Fundamentally, the remit of the sporting director is to be be a link between the coaching staff and the club's hierarchy, providing continuity, sustainability and a stable strategy in the club's football operations. Advertisement 'The sporting director is the safeguard of the culture of the club,' says Damien Comolli, Juventus' general manager and previously sporting or football director at Fenerbahce, Liverpool, Saint-Etienne and Tottenham. 'We need to make sure that short term, medium term and long term are looked at with the same level of interest.' While sporting directors were scarce in the Premier League at the start of the 21st century, they have become the norm at top-level clubs, with many known among fans by name. Last October, Txiki Begiristain announced that he is leaving Manchester City this summer after 12 years at the club, with Hugo Viana replacing him. On the other side of the city, controversy ran high when Dan Ashworth left his role as Manchester United sporting director after just five months in the role. Former Atletico Madrid sporting director Andrea Berta was confirmed as Arsenal's new sporting director in March, replacing Edu after the Brazilian's shock resignation in November to join Evangelos Marinakis' multi-club group. Meanwhile, Richard Hughes arrived as Liverpool's sporting director last summer with a daunting in-tray that included crucial contract negotiations for star trio Virgil van Dijk, Mohamed Salah and Trent Alexander-Arnold. The lens on the sporting director has never been sharper, yet what they do is still often misunderstood. To gain a better understanding, The Athletic interviewed several sporting directors and collaborated with analytics company Traits Insights who collected data — including sporting background and experience — on over 300 sporting directors (or equivalents) across 15 major European competitions. Crucially, what makes a successful one? For all the attention it has garnered, there is still ambiguity about the role itself between different clubs. The title of 'director of football', 'sporting director', 'general manager', 'chief football officer' and 'technical director' are ultimately synonyms for the same job, though what clubs expect from that job does vary. Advertisement While the role of a head coach or manager is clearly defined, a sporting director does not have a one-size-fits-all approach. Depending on the level of the club or league, the infrastructure built around the role can vary hugely. For some clubs, there will be a single director who sits at the centre of the system; for others, there will be shared responsibilities spanning multiple roles. 'In Germany, you might have a sporting director, a 'kaderplaner' (head of recruitment), a technical director, and then an executive only responsible for sport,' says Jonas Boldt, former sporting director at Hamburg and Bayer Leverkusen. 'When you also think about the coach too, this can have issues at times, because it is difficult to know who has the power or responsibility, and where to share those roles out clearly.' The fact that football is developing so rapidly, not just the Premier League, has added to the uncertainty over exactly what the sporting director is responsible for. As Comolli says, 'The structure of clubs is changing.' 'These roles have existed for much longer in Germany, Italy and Spain than it has in England,' he continues, 'but I would not distinguish from country to country — I would say the industry is changing as a whole. 'In the last five years, I've seen the role evolve. For example, Manchester City were very successful with Txiki (Begiristain), and then they brought Simon Timson in as a performance director (in 2020), who gets involved in a lot of areas. 'Ten years ago, I would have told you that they are taking work from each other, but actually they complement each other really well — the job of one becomes two, and the industry is now going in that direction.' Brentford is a good example of two roles dovetailing together in the Premier League. Director of football, Phil Giles, is responsible for squad management, squad planning and contract renewals at the club while technical director, Lee Dykes is in charge of Brentford's recruitment department. Advertisement The two work in tandem towards a shared goal of ensuring the best possible talent ends up on the pitch — or as Giles puts it, 'Mine and Lee's job is to do the nuts and bolts of the transfer.' When looking through the number of sporting director (or equivalent) roles across Europe's major leagues, the contrast in structure starts to become clearer. As Comolli said, sporting director roles have long been established in Italy, Germany and Spain, as well as in the Netherlands, with a minimum of one position filled within each club across each of those respective leagues. Ligue 1 had the lowest share of sporting directors within the league, with 15 of 18 clubs having a position filled. With the Premier League catching up in recent years, 19 of the 20 clubs had at least one sporting director (or equivalent) in place last season — up from 13 out of 20 in 2016-17. Of the 20 clubs, eight (40 per cent) split the structure across two roles, akin to Giles and Dykes. Previous experience among sporting directors can vary significantly. Returning to Giles and Dykes as an example, the former gained a PhD in statistics before working his way up to head of quantitative research at Smartodds, which is owned by Brentford majority owner Matthew Benham. Meanwhile, Dykes joined Brentford as head of recruitment after being sporting director at Bury FC — with a background in coaching having previously been assistant manager at Carlisle United. Analysis by Traits outlined four 'archetypes' that best describe the most common pathways sporting directors follow prior to landing the role. They are: Crucially, these archetypes are not mutually exclusive. Rather than pigeon-holing specific sporting directors to specific categories, it is better to think of the diverse pathways as a Venn diagram with plenty of crossover in the skills that are acquired from the respective backgrounds. 'I would add one other pathway, which is the academy pathway,' says Comolli. 'Dan Ashworth comes from an academy background, for example. Sassuolo have won promotion back to Serie A this season, and their sporting director, Francesco Palmieri, was the club's academy manager for nine years before he got this role. Incidentally, he was also a former player himself.' Advertisement It is a sentiment shared by others across the industry, with a club's academy acting as an ideal breeding ground for a role within the senior set-up. 'I think working as an academy manager can be a useful step to prepare (to be a sporting director),' says Johannes Spors, sporting director at Southampton and formerly of multi-club 777 Partners, Genoa, and Vitesse Arnhem. 'You basically make the same decisions, just with less financial impact. At times, academy directors manage more staff members than I do, but the decisions simply become more impactful the higher you get.' It is common for appointed sporting directors to arrive into their roles having had experience elsewhere within football clubs. For example, Norwich City's sporting director Ben Knapper was the loan and pathway manager at Arsenal before making the move to the Championship side. However, Traits' analysis showed that 17 per cent came from non-technical roles or roles outside of football altogether. A notable example would be Tottenham Hotspur's recently departed chief football officer Scott Munn, who held roles in commercial operations of the National Rugby League and Australian Football League before later working as a CEO at Melbourne City and later City Football Group. His role at Spurs as chief football officer saw him focus more on football strategy, with the role created after an external review of the club's footballing activities. The core management skills and business acumen required to fulfil the role are often separate from the football industry itself. There can often be a cyclical criticism between 'people who know the game' and 'those who know how to run a successful business' when discussing those within the boardroom, but the evidence shows that having a background within football is not always a precursor to working within the industry. As a further example, Aston Villa's director of football operations, Damian Vidagany, worked as a journalist in his early career before taking a role as Valencia's chief media officer and later becoming chief executive of DV7, a media agency founded by former Spain international David Villa. Working alongside Monchi, the renowned sporting director who is now Villa's president of football operations, Vidagany is regarded as one of Unai Emery's most trusted colleagues as the club aims to re-establish itself among Europe's elite. 'My role allows Monchi to be focused on the sporting and scouting side of football, creating and developing a strong network of scouts,' Vidagany said in 2023. 'We work as Batman and Robin because the structure of Villa needs to grow very fast.' In his current role at Southampton, Spors is keen to highlight that a large part of being a good sporting director is about appointing the right people and developing the club's structure. 'I think it's getting more and more important that you are simply a good leader for the organisation,' says Spors. 'This is the most important thing. There is such a diversity of clubs and how they see their identity, but diversity is always the best — it is important to have people from every background. Advertisement 'For example, data is obviously becoming more important in this space — especially with the rise of American ownership. When I arrived at Southampton, the first thing I did was to hire my assistant (Elliott Stapley), who was the former head of data and analytics at 777, and the second thing I did was to change the whole recruitment structure to make sure the data and analytics team were reporting to me.' Much like the role itself, measuring success depends on the context of the club. Silverware might be the ultimate physical representation of success, but victories can be just as important off the pitch as on it. 'This is a very technical job, so I need to innovate each department to make sure that we have a communication structure and a leadership structure with accountability in every department,' says Spors. 'The better we get there, the more we can increase the chance of on-pitch success.' For Boldt, who was sporting director at Hamburg from 2019 to 2024, the club's finances impacted much of his tenure. The 2021-22 financial year was the first time the club posted a positive annual profit in 12 years. 'My job was to make the club more stable, to recreate the identity, to develop young players and to help the coaches to do their job,' Boldt said. 'I'm not there anymore, but it's the same team, and this project together was four years in the making — and we can now see the output from their efforts.' Now, the structure of the club is in a far stronger position after securing a return to the Bundesliga this season following six seasons out of the top flight. Last year saw the club record a financial profit for the third year in a row, with its Volksparkstadion stadium debts paid off two years ahead of schedule. While Boldt was not the one holding the purse strings, Hamburg's financial landscape meant he had to be skilful in ensuring the club operated within its means when buying and selling players. Advertisement 'To have success, you have to be one step ahead. Sometimes, you need to let young players go to another club and give them space to develop (elsewhere) — but in football, nobody sees this as success because you're often linked to how many titles you won,' he says. 'For a sporting director or executive, we are responsible for the strategy and the vision of the club. I understand that you need results, but Hamburg is more stable than ever before, with less debt than ever before. If we had been promoted immediately (back to the Bundesliga), it would have likely been a disaster because the club was unstable, but now the base is so much stronger than the years before. That is success for me.' Stability should be synonymous with the role. It might sound obvious, but a sporting director needs to be in the position for the long term to implement such stability, which has not always been the case among some Premier League sides. Ashworth left Newcastle United before his short-lived stint at Manchester United, with his replacement Paul Mitchell announced that he was also parting company with Newcastle last month after less than a year in the role — leaving the club with the task of appointing their third sporting director in rapid succession. Liverpool's appointment of Hughes brought stability to the club last summer after a disruptive 18 months that saw Jorg Schmadtke hired on a short-term contract following the departure of previous sporting director Julian Ward — who had only replaced Michael Edwards a year before. Had a long-term sporting director been in place, the public contract sagas involving Van Dijk, Salah and Alexander-Arnold might have been handled differently. The common thread is that nothing is ever guaranteed on the pitch, but the good sporting directors will find a way to control the controllable and give the club long-term improvement, regardless of short-term ups and downs. 'All I can do is try and increase the chance of success,' says Spors. 'As a sporting director, we can do much more than just sign players or a coach. We can build the culture. We can make sure every department is on the best level and is pushing to the next level.' 'Getting three points on a Saturday is just the result of all the work that sits behind it.'
Yahoo
12 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Council's big bin service to be permanent - but warnings of longer waits
A scheme to hire extra large bins will become a permanent fixture - but residents may have to wait longer if it takes off. West Lindsey residents can hire bins that are around three times the size of a typical wheelie bin for £50, or six times the size for £60. The Big Bin Clear Out scheme has proved very popular during its initial trial, with more than 450 being requested, and councillors said it would be "madness" not to make it a permanent fixture. However, the current seven-day wait could be increased to keep costs low if demand continues to grow. West Lindsey District Council's Prosperous Communities Committee voted unanimously to continue the scheme. READ MORE: Rescue owner warns of 'pandemic of unwanted dogs' as puppies found dumped in box READ MORE: Nine times the size of Skegness - the full scale of solar farm plans for Lincolnshire Alan Bowley, the Interim Director of Operations and Commercial Services, said, 'So far, we have kept the scheme low-key because it was a pilot. We will monitor the service's growth. "To mitigate costs, we may have to look at arrangements for booking. Currently, there is no wait more than seven days. If demand keeps getting higher, we might have to stretch that so it doesn't incur extra costs.' Councillor Lesley Rollings (Lib Dem) said: 'This has proved very successful with residents. It's exactly what's needed when people are moving house and don't want a big skip.' Councillor Roger Patterson (Con) said: 'The figures speak for themselves - it's working and I hope it will be highly successful. It would be madness not to continue.' The big bins are suitable for a variety of household waste, including wood, plastic items, artificial Christmas trees and shelving, with a full list available on the council's website. Mattresses, electrical items and any commercial waste are not accepted. Figures show that Gainsborough was by far the place where the bins were in most demand, possibly due to fewer people having access to cars to travel to tips. Bookings should be made through the council website.
