Asked by: Peter Dowd (Labour - Bootle)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment his Department has made of the potential merits of extending business rates exemptions and the temporary VAT reduction to businesses in the wedding industry.
Answered by Jesse Norman
This year, due to the direct adverse effects of COVID-19, the Government has provided an unprecedented business rates holiday for eligible retail, hospitality and leisure properties. The Government has also frozen the business rates multiplier for all businesses for 2021-22.
The temporary VAT reduced rate came into effect on 15 July 2020 and was initially scheduled to end on 12 January 2021. The Government extended the reduced rate of VAT (five per cent) until 31 March 2021.
The Government has provided various schemes to support firms, including those in the wedding industry, including Coronavirus Business Interruption Loans, Bounce Back Loans, grants and VAT deferrals.
The Budget will set out the next phase of the Government’s plans to tackle the virus, protect jobs and support business.
Asked by: Peter Dowd (Labour - Bootle)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many and what proportion of people in the UK have private medical insurance.
Answered by John Glen - Paymaster General and Minister for the Cabinet Office
The Government monitors the insurance market and is responsible for setting the overall legal framework of financial services regulation.
The Government does not hold information on the amount spent on private medical cover, or on the number and proportion of people in the UK with private medical insurance.
However, data from the Office for National Statistics reports that total expenditure on voluntary health insurance was £6 billion in 2017.
Asked by: Peter Dowd (Labour - Bootle)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how much was spent on private medical health cover in the UK in 2018.
Answered by John Glen - Paymaster General and Minister for the Cabinet Office
The Government monitors the insurance market and is responsible for setting the overall legal framework of financial services regulation.
The Government does not hold information on the amount spent on private medical cover, or on the number and proportion of people in the UK with private medical insurance.
However, data from the Office for National Statistics reports that total expenditure on voluntary health insurance was £6 billion in 2017.
Asked by: Peter Dowd (Labour - Bootle)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many late filing penalties HMRC collected from large companies in 2018.
Answered by Jesse Norman
The purpose of penalties is to encourage taxpayers to comply with their tax obligations, to act as a sanction for those who do not, and to reassure those who do that they will not be disadvantaged by those who do not. Penalties are not used as a revenue-raising mechanism.
Parliament determines the laws relating to tax and to whom they apply. HMRC apply those laws fairly and do not discriminate between different taxpayers or size of business.
HMRC can apply a large number of different penalties, but they break down into three broad areas:
Automatic penalties for failure to meet a time-bound obligation, such as submitting returns or making payments by a specified deadline;
Penalties for failure to meet a regulatory obligation, such as the requirement to keep certain records; and
Behaviour-based penalties for inaccurate returns and documents and failure to notify taxable status.
A penalty is not payable if a person had a reasonable excuse for failing to meet an obligation or took reasonable care to avoid submitting an inaccurate return.
HMRC do not record data on penalties issued by size of business.
Asked by: Peter Dowd (Labour - Bootle)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many tax avoidance schemes related to the use of personal service companies HMRC successfully challenged in 2018.
Answered by Jesse Norman
This information is only available at disproportionate cost.
HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) do not routinely collate the number of tax avoidance schemes related to the use of personal service companies.
HMRC publishes information regarding the number of tax avoidance cases challenged in court by taxpayers in their annual Tax Assurance Commissioner’s Report. At the same time, HMRC publish a list of tax avoidance litigation decisions handed down during the period. The Report for 2018-19 is due to be published before the summer recess.
Asked by: Peter Dowd (Labour - Bootle)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many capital infrastructure projects have been completed as part of the Government’s National Infrastructure and Construction Pipeline.
Answered by Elizabeth Truss
Since 2010, over 4,900 public and private infrastructure projects have been successfully delivered.
In particular, since 2010, the government has earmarked 158 major projects as being of national significance and a priority, including 90 listed in the National Infrastructure Delivery Plan 2016-2021. IPA tracks and publishes the delivery progress of all 158 projects, publishing a National Infrastructure and Construction Pipeline document each year. As reported in the current edition of the Pipeline, published in November 2018, the vast majority are being delivered, with 98% completed or on track to deliver.
In 2018 alone, over 400 infrastructure projects were completed and moved into operation across a number of sectors. In the North West, for example, these included major investments such as the Walney Extension wind farm capable of powering over 600,000 homes; 2km of new flood defences to protect thousands of homes in Rossall on the coast of Lancashire; and the UK’s first Proton Beam Therapy centre at Christie Hospital in Manchester.
But it is not just major projects such as these which are having a real impact on people’s lives. We are also delivering hundreds of smaller projects across the UK.
Asked by: Peter Dowd (Labour - Bootle)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many tax experts HMRC's Tax Capacity Building Unit and Tax Expert Unit has trained since 2017.
Answered by Jesse Norman
The Capacity Building Unit, which subsumed the Tax Expert Unit on 1 April 2017, does not maintain records of the number of people trained in Low and Middle Income Countries. This is principally because:
Asked by: Peter Dowd (Labour - Bootle)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many people received an end of year tax summary from HMRC in 2018.
Answered by Jesse Norman
Approximately 19.5 million customers received a paper Annual Tax Summary and approximately 10 million self-assessment customers received a digital version of the Annual Tax Summary in 2018/19 (for the year 2017/18).
Asked by: Peter Dowd (Labour - Bootle)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many people have been challenged by HMRC for promoting or facilitating tax avoidance schemes since 2017.
Answered by Jesse Norman
HMRC are investigating over 100 promoters and others involved in avoidance. Since the formation of HMRC’s Fraud Investigation Service on 1 April 2016, more than 20 individuals have been convicted for offences relating to arrangements which have been promoted and marketed as tax avoidance schemes. The majority of those convictions relate to promoters. Recently, six individuals were arrested on suspicion of promoting fraudulent arrangements to get around the loan charge.
Asked by: Peter Dowd (Labour - Bootle)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether HMRC has plans to publish its correspondence with (a) tax payers and (b) agents.
Answered by Jesse Norman
HMRC have no plans to publish their correspondence with tax payers and agents.
HM Revenue and Customs are bound by a strict duty of confidentiality with respect to all of the information they hold in connection with their functions. HMRC officials may share information only in the limited circumstances set out in legislation, which include disclosures for the purposes of HMRC’s functions, through specific ‘legislative gateways’ or with a person’s consent.