Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he will publish an analysis of the estimated tax gap caused by unincorporated businesses; and what estimate he has made of the proportion of this tax gap attributable to (a) unrepresented business and (b) businesses represented by agents.

Estimates of the tax gap were published in Measuring Tax Gaps on 20 October 2016 and are available at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/measuring-tax-gaps. The estimated tax gap for self-assessed business taxpayers in 2014-15 is £6.0 billion. This excludes the tax gap due to VAT, the hidden economy and employer contributions through Pay As You Earn, which is not available by legal entity. Estimates of the tax gap attributable to represented and unrepresented unincorporated businesses are not available; however, HM Revenue and Customs has estimated that 70 per cent of small- and medium-sized enterprises are represented.