How is HMRC's Digital Transformation really going? 🤜It's needed. Tax evasion is moving online. It's time tax administration did too. But: ⚙️ Some MTD APIs still aren't ready 💷 Costs are up, expected returns down 5 things we learned in 2025: www.taxwatchuk.org/make-tax-dig...

Why don't people trust HMRC? The answers not what you might think - there's more going on than just the fact that people don't like paying tax... TaxWatch deep-dive here: taxinvestigation.co/new/why-dont...

Resourcing HMRC is incredibly good value: every £1 for tax compliance brings in £23. Private-sector orgs dream about ROI like that. But some everyday/automated tax enforcement is error-prone, or hits the poorest hardest. We need to measure tax **enforcement** incidence.

👏 Thank you to everyone who took action and emailed your MPs to say NO to new tax breaks for big tech.👇

🌐Also hidden in today's Budget: the UK is keeping its Digital Services Tax, despite Trump tariff threats. This will safeguard £4.4-5.2bn of tax revenues from the biggest tech companies over this parliament. Read TaxWatch’s DST myth-buster here: taxwatchuk.org/new-taxwatch... #budget25 #budget #tax

TaxWatch's flash Budget response: A new £2.6bn tax dodging crackdown is the Budget’s third-largest tax pledge. But will it work, when existing tools are barely being used? taxwatchuk.org/new-2-6bn-ta... #budget25 #budget #tax

The government’s flagship plan to “close the tax gap” cannot work without the staff required to deliver it. taxwatchuk.org/state-of-tax... New report, and 🧵

x.com/ukaccoalitio... Lloyd Hatton MP calls for HMRC to "get a firmer grip on the scale of wealth that is currently stashed away offshore, and publish its findings openly". Here's how TaxWatch and @tbij.bsky.social found that HMRC have the figures, but won't release them: tinyurl.com/ms559fku

🚨 NEW: We wrote to the Chancellor, urging her not to leave billions lost to illicit finance and tax-related crimes on the table ahead of the upcoming budget. www.ukanticorruptioncoalition.org/work/our-let...

Has the Chancellor, with the rest of the G7, agreed a $6 billion tax break for US big tech? And as we head into a tax-rise budget, why can't taxpayers see the UK Treasury's estimates for how much UK revenue we might be giving away? 🧵

What gets measured gets done. Why we need to end Whitehall secrecy on offshore secrecy...

First, news that the Budget may put Employers' NIC on partnership income. Now a new leak that general partnerships may be exempted to avoid hitting 🩺GP practices. TaxWatch's Mike Lewis talks to @thetimes.com radio.

Also including: - @autonomy-institute.bsky.social on the political economy of AI - @mathewlawrence.bsky.social on the 'privatisation premium' on essentials - @jryancollins.bsky.social on reforming property tax - @taxwatch.bsky.social on the big pharma tax loop hole and more!

1/ 🚨We’re getting a bad deal. Pharma companies are freeloading on the UK taxpayer. Read @taxjusticeuk.bsky.social's new investigation ⬇️ www.taxwatchuk.org/taxwatch-inv...

The UK's Patent Box tax break is meant to promote "innovation". Last year a single pharma company collected a massive £486 million, or a quarter of its entire value. For doing what, exactly? Critical Takes fed into this investigation by @taxwatch.bsky.social www.taxwatchuk.org/wp-content/u...

As Big Pharma’s attack on the UK continues this report by @taxwatch.bsky.social👇shows 1 Pharma company has received billions in tax relief. It’s part of the crazy subsidies we give big business to ‘drive innovation’. Instead it drives monopolies & high prices 🧵 www.taxwatchuk.org/the-great-ph...

🚨BREAKING🚨 💊 GSK lobbied for a juicy tax break, pocketed £3.4bn, then ghosted on UK investments. It's time to end the "Patent Box" tax break scheme, gifting billions to Big Pharma. Full report from @taxwatch.bsky.social: www.taxwatchuk.org/taxwatch-inv...

In this year's Budget, we're told every penny counts. Yet we've found the UK has given one pharma company a £3.4 billion tax cut on profits of patented drugs, including some too expensive for the NHS, while it still cut UK jobs. How did this happen, and why did no-one notice?🧵

The Ethics Adviser’s report is out on Angela Rayner MP's tax error, and one thing is clear: tax advice is complicated. Because the tax system is complicated, and life is complicated. It's high time that the government stopped dragging its feet on regulating tax advice. /1🧵

Amazon UK released figures today about their economic and tax contribution in the UK during 2024. No big surprises - but they do underline a key issue: www.aboutamazon.co.uk/news/company...

UK ministers last month praised 5 UK Overseas Territories for searchable registers to reveal who really owns companies – a tool against tax evasion, money laundering, corruption. TaxWatch wanted see how these registers are working on the ground. It's not quite as expected: 🧵

In the latest edition of Taxation magazine (£), TaxWatch's Chris White rounds up the state of play on offshore secrecy and UK tax: the limits of offshore 'nudge' letters, UK foot-dragging on UKOTs, how CRS interacts with BO registers, and continued gaps in both www.taxation.co.uk/articles/off...

"A report...prepared by Dundee United’s tax consultant...stated that its players spent 24 per cent of their time directly conducting research and development activities" www.thetimes.com/sport/footba...

Stronger powers against ‘enablers’ are back on the table once again. But new figures show that existing powers are still not being used against those who design and enable aggressive tax avoidance and evasion.🧵

From @taxwatch.bsky.social: Last week, five British Overseas Territories, including major offshore financial centres like Bermuda and the British Virgin Islands, added another broken promise to over a decade of delay on tax and corporate secrecy. Read more:

This is a serious issue. The yield from late payment penalties is small. 4- or 5-figure penalties+interest are life-changing for individuals on low incomes. The number of late filing penalties has fallen since the pandemic, but their incidence remains highly skewed.

🔎Meanwhile, new tax enforcement stats obtained by TaxWatch show that HMRC letters to 1,277 UK residents named in the 2021 'Pandora Papers' offshore leak have so far generated just 22 disclosures of undeclared offshore income. More here: taxwatchuk.org/broken-offsh...

After years of attempted reform, offshore financial centres still offer secrecy for those determined to hide money and evade tax. This week, five of the UK's Overseas Territories ignored a seven-year deadline to put in place properly searchable 'beneficial ownership' registers.

TaxWatch's take on today's #taxgap figures. All eyes are on small business, but there's a quietly growing body of evidence that some other categories may be systematically under-estimated, and still contain some very big fish. taxwatchuk.org/the-gap-in-t...

TaxWatch digs into what the Comprehensive Spending Review means for the UK's tax administration www.taxwatchuk.org/taxwatch-csr...

Departments' capital spending sometimes gets overlooked. But for a department struggling with legacy systems, due to deliver Make Tax Digital, and promised a raft of new AI and analytics tools for tax compliance, HMRC capital cuts look potentially disastrous #SpendingReview

To file under: we should debate tax based on data not hunches @taxjustice.net @taxjusticeuk.bsky.social @patmillsuk.bsky.social on how a publication from a golden passport firm, tracking a small number of people via social media, became the basis for a UK media storm about a national wealth exodus

What makes a tax "discriminatory"? American companies dominate the tech sector, yet ~40% of companies hit by the UK digital services tax are NOT American. Silly for the US to start a tax war with the UK over this issue. h/t @taxwatch.bsky.social for fact-checking the conventional wisdom.

The UK's 'Google Tax', in other words, is becoming less and less of a Google Tax. It's now on the chopping block in UK-US trade negotiations, based on claims that it applies 'almost entirely' to US businesses only. That's not true. taxwatchuk.org/donald-trump...

New figures obtained by TaxWatch provide the first ever breakdown of where the companies subject to the UK DST are headquartered. Nearly 40 percent are not US-headed firms at all - contrary to claims by politicians and the tech industry itself

Donald Trump and the US Congress are calling the UK's Digital Services Tax a discriminatory 'tariff' almost entirely targeting US tech giants. No-one seems to have asked whether that's actually true. TaxWatch checked... www.taxwatchuk.org/donald-trump...

Read the full report in our press release: patrioticmillionaires.uk/latest-news/...

TaxWatch takes a deep-dive into why penalties against tax abuse enablers are barely used: in part, legal roadblocks (not accorded to taxpayers) created by lobbying that compared requiring documents from tax advisers, to abuses in the War on Terror taxwatchuk.org/with-hindsig...

🏢 NEW 🏢 When it comes to buying property, the UK has trust issues. Our new analysis found over 170 properties, worth £2.5 billion, bought using suspicious wealth and owned via complex trust structures. Find out more ⤵️ www.transparency.org.uk/news/trust-i...

HMRC wants new powers to tackle tax abuse enablers: we point out that existing powers are rarely used, while the tax profession lobbies against changes to make it easier to pursue dishonest tax advisers @taxnotes.com www.taxnotes.com/tax-notes-to...

Headlines about a major @nao.org.uk report out today suggest that HMRC is getting more tax due from wealthy individuals. That's true. But under the bonnet, taxes going unpaid by this group are likely increasing, and penalties for wealthy non-compliance have plummeted by 75%.🧵

HMRC wants to step up the fight against enablers of tax abuse (again). But it's barely using some of the powers and penalties it already has. www.taxwatchuk.org/back-to-the-...

The DST stays. The 👿, of course, is in the detail. No clarity yet on how an unspecified 'digital trade deal' will affect regulation and even tax revenues - like the £1.5bn (dwarfing DST) from making online marketplaces liable for overseas sellers' VAT? www.reuters.com/business/ret...

Making policy with a generational horizon. Important lessons for tax systems, including the UK's: how to shift decades of short-term revenue goals and loophole whack-a-mole towards long-term, sustainable, equitable revenue-raising.

UK's Digital Service Tax under threat following Trump's tariffs www.taxwatchuk.org/reducing-uks...

Spring Statement bets on tax compliance and debt collection to re-assert deterrence effect. #Tax www.taxwatchuk.org/spring-state...

Cuts to benefits announced today have clearly been motivated by a desire to make short-term savings to meet arbitrary fiscal rules. They're not going to help ill and disabled people, they're only going to create more problems. @pollardtom.bsky.social reacts to Liz Kendall's speech

A comprehensive report on the UK tax advice market has revealed alarming gaps in regulation that leave both taxpayers and public finances vulnerable to significant harm. TaxWatch explores the options for widespread reform. #Tax www.taxwatchuk.org/uk-tax-advic...

The latest report from the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) paints a concerning picture of tax evasion in the UK. The report raises significant concerns about HMRC’s seemingly incurious approach to the scale of tax evasion. #Tax #HMRC #TaxEvasion www.taxwatchuk.org/curiously-in...