HMRC has published its single departmental plan which sets out its objectives for the coming year. The plan highlights three key objectives with additional detail supporting these themes. The key objectives are:
In comparing some of the detail in this plan to last year’s there are some interesting points to note:
Increase in compliance revenues
HMRC is anticipating an increase of £2bn in compliance revenues from last year’s target of £28bn. £1bn of this increase may arise through settlement activity which is expected to deliver an additional £1bn in revenues in the year. This settlement revenue is almost certainly as a result of the revenues arising under the Disguised Remuneration settlement opportunity, the Worldwide Disclosure Facility and the Requirement to Correct legislation introduced in 2017 which gives taxpayers the opportunity to correct issues arising in respect of their offshore tax position by 30 September 2018 in order to avoid significant penalties arising under the failure to correct legislation.
What is also interesting is that revenues from Accelerated Payment Notices (APNs) is expected to reduce from £1.3bn to £450m. This fall is almost certainly due to the nature of the APN legislation which was designed to target tax avoidance arrangements - most of these historic schemes have already been subjected to APNs which require taxpayers to pay the tax under dispute in advance of the issue being agreed.
