Asked by: George Howarth (Labour - Knowsley)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether his Department's joint legal review of debt administration with the Insolvency Service plans to address long-standing issues within the debt advice sector.
Answered by Harriett Baldwin
The Government will make an announcement on next steps in due course.
Asked by: George Howarth (Labour - Knowsley)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what the terms of reference are for his Department's forthcoming review of debt administration.
Answered by Harriett Baldwin
The Government will make an announcement on next steps in due course.
Asked by: George Howarth (Labour - Knowsley)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what estimate his Department has made of the amount of UK tax which was lost to tax avoidance practices adopted by multinational technology companies in (a) 2011, (b) 2012 and (c) 2013.
Answered by David Gauke
Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) do not publish information on the tax lost to avoidance by particular sectors of the economy.
HMRC publish estimates of the tax gap in Measuring Tax Gaps each year. The 2014 edition (published on 16 October 2014) presents a time series of tax gaps from 2005-06 to 2012-13, which can be found at the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/measuring-tax-gaps
HMRC has also produced an illustrative breakdown of the tax gap by behaviour, including avoidance, for several years including 2010-11, 2011-12 and 2012-13.
Previous editions of ‘Measuring Tax Gaps’ can be accessed at the same link given above.
Asked by: George Howarth (Labour - Knowsley)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what the most recent estimate is of the cost of tax incentives and tax relief currently available to UK-based multinational companies.
Answered by David Gauke
An answer could only be produced at disproportionate cost.
HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) publishes estimates of the cost of individual tax incentives and tax reliefs.
Main tax incentives and structural reliefs can be found at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/main-tax-expenditures-and-structural-reliefs.
Minor tax incentives and structural reliefs can be found at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/minor-tax-expenditures-and-structural-reliefs.
These include tax incentives and reliefs which will be claimed by UK-based multinational companies, as well as domestic firms and groups based outside the UK.
There are also some allowances and reliefs which HMRC does not have sufficient data to estimate the cost of. They can be found at this address: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/tax-allowances-and-reliefs-in-force-cost-not-known
Asked by: George Howarth (Labour - Knowsley)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what steps his Department is taking to strengthen the corporate tax regime to prevent UK-based multinational companies from practising tax avoidance in developing countries.
Answered by David Gauke
The Treasury is committed to helping developing countries collect the tax they are due and building the capacity of developing country tax administrations is key to this. Working with the Department for International Development and HM Revenue and Customs, the Treasury is supporting capacity building projects bilaterally – through DfID country programmes and HMRC’s Capacity Building Unit – and through regional tax organisations and International Organisations.
The UK strongly supports ongoing work in the G20 and OECD to develop global solutions to corporate tax avoidance. As part of this the UK announced it would be the first of 44 countries to formally commit to implementing the new, common country-by-country reporting template for multinationals to report profit and tax information to tax authorities to help risk assessment.
Asked by: George Howarth (Labour - Knowsley)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what steps he is taking to tackle tax avoidance by global technology firms.
Answered by David Gauke
This Government has been relentless in its crackdown on tax avoidance, and has taken a range of action to prevent avoidance at the outset, and to detect and counter it effectively where it persists. The Government has made 42 changes to tax law, closing numerous loopholes and introducing major strategic reforms to the UK tax system, such as the UK's first General Anti-Abuse Rule. Supported by the Government's investment of £1 billion in HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) to tackle tax avoidance and evasion, HMRC has secured over £77 billion in compliance yield since the start of this Parliament. As part of this, since April 2010 HMRC has secured around £31billion from large businesses. So it should come as no surprise that we are considering action in this area.
In his recent Conference speech the Chancellor stated that action will be taken to stop technology companies that go to extraordinary lengths to avoid tax in the UK. The Chancellor's foreword in the UK position paper on "Tackling aggressive tax planning in the global economy", published at the last Budget, stated that such behaviour is unfair and wrong. Further details will be set out this Autumn.
In addition, the UK is working with the G20, OECD and other countries to take forward the Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) project. Part of this involves work on the tax challenges of the digital economy through the Task Force on the Digital Economy, and UK officials are fully engaged in this process.