Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what plans he has to introduce measures to tackle tax avoidance and evasion by people through nom-dom status and offshore trusts.

Since 2010, the Government have secured almost £160 billion in additional tax revenue as a result of actions to tackle tax evasion, tax avoidance and non-compliance. This includes more than £2.7 billon from offshore tax evaders, with action both at home and abroad.

The UK already has effective legislation to tackle avoidance involving offshore trusts. We announced our intention to legislate further, making it harder for anybody to avoid paying tax on funds held in offshore trusts and to introduce tougher sanctions for those who fail to declare past UK tax liabilities on offshore interests before October 2018. The Government is introducing legislation which will raise over £1.5bn from non-domiciled individuals over a five-year period.

The UK has been at the forefront of international work which has seen over 100 countries commit to automatically exchange financial account information. Furthermore, we have set up a register for trusts with tax consequences, we have introduced new civil and criminal sanctions for offshore tax evaders and those who help them, and since 2010, we have invested over £1.8 billion in HMRC to tackle evasion, avoidance and non-compliance.