7. What progress HM Revenue and Customs has made in closing loopholes in the tax system. (139718)
9. What plans he has to tackle corporate tax avoidance and to close the tax gap. (139720)
Over this Parliament, we have introduced 31 measures to tackle tax avoidance, including loophole closures. This year, our work will focus on strengthening the disclosure regime, consulting on new sanctions for avoidance promoters and introducing the general anti-abuse rule. HMRC will also increase its risk assessment and specialist transfer pricing resources to target multinationals. Combined, those measures will strengthen our commitment to tackling tax avoidance and reducing the tax gap associated with it.
I thank the Minister for that answer. How will the Government use the presidency of the G8 this year to tackle international tax loopholes that have an effect on receipts to the UK Treasury?
My hon. Friend is right to raise that point. The Prime Minister has said that he wants to use the G8 for this purpose and to have a serious debate about tax avoidance. The OECD is looking at this matter. We are encouraging it to do so and have provided it with additional resources. It will report back on solutions that could be developed to tackle profit-shifting by multinationals and the erosion of the corporate tax base.
May I say how welcome it is that the UK is using the presidency of the G8 to tackle international tax avoidance, after a decade in which the Government of this country stood by while industrial tax avoidance was allowed to run rampant? I urge the Government to focus on the issue of tax presence, particularly for companies such as Amazon, which we all know are in this country and should be paying tax in this country, but are playing the rules to avoid it.
I will not get into individual cases. As I have said, the OECD, at the urging of my right hon. Friend the Chancellor, is looking at these issues. We want to ensure that there is an international tax system whereby economic activity is taxed where it occurs. That has been overlooked for too long and we are determined to address it.
Will the Minister join me in calling on all political parties in this country to refuse or return any donations from tax avoiders?
I think perhaps the hon. Gentleman might want to have a word with those on the Opposition Front Bench before he ventures into that territory.
Will the Minister say why there are fewer people in the offshore investigation and affluence investigation units in Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs than there are working on cutting child benefit for families?
I should point out that those units were not in existence under the previous Government and were introduced as a consequence of our reinvestment programme. On enforcement and compliance more generally, I also point out that if we are looking only at numbers, under the previous Government the number of people working in HMRC’s enforcement and compliance department fell by 10,000. Under this Government it will increase by 2,500.
The managing partner of Ernst & Young has dismissed the concerns of the House about aggressive tax avoidance by stating:
“The simplest solution is to stop banging on about morality and change the law.”
Does the Minister share my view that in a civilised society we do not live by rules and regulations alone, but by what we consider to be right? Should not boards of companies that operate in this country be asking themselves a key question about all their activities, including their tax policy: is this the right thing to do?
Increasingly, artificial contrived behaviour is something that all of us, including the public, simply do not accept. My hon. Friend is right to say that this is a board matter, and boards should take tax policy seriously. Companies should think very seriously about aggressive, artificial, contrived behaviour and there is low tolerance for such behaviour.
Did the Minister see the footage that recently came to light of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, then in opposition, appearing on the “Daily Politics” programme and advising the public about how to take advantage of tax loopholes?
This Chancellor has done more to tackle tax avoidance than any of his predecessors, and this Government have taken tax compliance much more seriously. I will give one more statistic: when we took office the yield from HMRC’s enforcement and compliance activity was £13 billion. We expect that number to have increased to £22 billion by the end of this Parliament. We are taking real steps to address this matter.