Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many evasion referrals to the HM Revenue and Customs Evasion Referral Team were made by the taskforces established to crack down on tax evasion and tax avoidance in each tax year since 2012-13; and how many such referrals were adopted as working cases by the HM Revenue and Customs (a) Criminal Investigation, (b) Specialist Investigation and (c) Local Compliance Fraud business unit.

Local Compliance Fraud merged with Specialist Investigation in 2015/16. Later that year Specialist Investigation then merged with Criminal Investigation to form one directorate, the Fraud Investigation Service (FIS). The figures for referrals to FIS are in the following table:

The referrals are made by HMRC officers when they suspect or discover evasion. The process is designed to escalate this type of case to a specialist team for review. If the case is not adopted by one of these teams it is returned to the referring officer to continue the investigation.