Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many requests his Department has made to the Government of Bermuda for assistance in its investigation of offshore tax avoidance and evasion.

The UK has around 150 tax treaties and tax information exchange agreements with other countries around the world, including with all of the Crown Dependencies and Overseas Territories.

HMRC is the body responsible for exchanging tax information under international treaties. HMRC routinely exchanges information which is relevant to tax investigations, including information about the beneficial ownership of companies and property.

Last year, HMRC made 1,096 requests of other tax administrations, and received 2,015 requests.

HMRC also automatically receives financial account information about UK taxpayers under the Common Reporting Standard. This year we received information from almost 50 jurisdictions and this will rise to over 100 jurisdictions next year.

Tax treaties and other exchange of information instruments under which exchanges take place have strict confidentiality requirements. This means that the UK cannot provide a breakdown of numbers of requests in relation to particular jurisdictions.