Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Deighton on 17 November (HL2586), whether they will make available the customer research into the way data on public expenditure statistics were presented in the letters to taxpayers intending to show how income taxes are spent; and why no reference was made in those statements to indirect taxation such as VAT.

The Government introduced tax summaries to make personal taxes more transparent and easier to understand. Tax summaries do not include VAT and other indirect taxes as the Government does not keep records of these in relation to individuals. To do so would require costly and intrusive monitoring of an individual’s spending patterns.

HMRC undertook extensive customer research of a range of tax summary prototypes to test whether taxpayers found the information clear and comprehensive. The research is available on the Gov.uk website^[1].

[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/personal-tax-transparency-customer-research-and-testing