Speeches by Hatton.

“Just touching on those who promote offshore tax avoidance schemes, there was a landmark action last month, which I certainly welcome, and you issued stop notices to Paul Baxendale-Walker for covering two offshore arrangements. That action that you took in that particular case was the first time that such action had bee…”

“Are you able to reassure us about how we can see it scaled up and used more frequently? This was only the first time that HMRC had ever used it.”

“It might be helpful if you could provide a bit of detail about how HMRC has reached the £1.9 billion figure for the tax gap for the very wealthiest. Does it simply include routine non-compliance, or does it cover deliberate and aggressive tax avoidance? Is it based only on savings and income, or does it include other t…”

“What does it exclude, then?”

“Would it include dividends?”

“Around this idea of your estimate of the wealthy tax gap, it does seem that it is not clear. I felt, reading the NAO Report, that it was not clear, so I hope that you can provide some clarity today. The wealthy tax gap has remained under £2 billion for a while now, but the number of wealthy individuals has grown quite …”

“It helps a little bit. It would be useful just to move on, if we could—and we are probably going to touch on this at some point later in the session anyway—to look at compliance in a bit more detail.”

“What is perhaps quite worrying, looking at this NAO Report and other reports, is that the yield is very low. Could we get some clear reasons for why 46% of investigations still close with no yield at all?”

“It is from quite a low starting point, granted.”

“There is a long way to go.”

“The process of investigating has grown in how long it takes, from 27 months to 40 months. You have both said that these take months and months, and that it is a lengthy process of back and forth.”

“Are some of the individuals being deliberately obstructive, where it is not about appeals or using the proper processes that are available to them? Are some of these individuals under investigation deliberately slowing down the process?”

“Do you not worry, then, that, if it takes 40 months on average to complete an investigation, there is a serious risk associated with flight? These people just get out of the country, and it is then impossible for HMRC or, indeed, any other body or agency to track them down.”

“It does happen. Because you take so long to investigate, people can get out of the country.”

“But you do think that it happens.”

“I just wanted to make sure that we did not forget to talk about the offshore tax gap, although we have started to touch upon it. We have talked about the overall tax gap, and the tax gap for the wealthiest individuals. When your predecessor came to this Committee not so long ago, we had quite a back‑and‑f…”

“Just to be really clear, do you feel that the £0.3 billion figure that your predecessor, JP, brought to this Committee is, in any way, a robust estimate of the offshore tax gap, particularly considering that HMRC’s own common reporting standard points out that UK taxpayers hold £850 billion in foreign accounts? I am no…”

“It is £570 billion held in tax havens. These jurisdictions exist completely to enable people to aggressively avoid and evade tax. If it is a £570 billion figure of just UK taxpayers, can you really tell us with confidence that that £0.3 billion figure is an accurate estimate of the offshore tax gap?”

“Is this a very effective formula? Is it world leading? Is it robust?”

“You might be the only ones, but it does not mean that it is effective.”