Revenue and Customs
The question
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what criteria HMRC will use to prioritise enforcement on high-risk tax areas.
Answered by Dan Tomlinson
HMRC uses a risk-based approach to identify individuals and businesses for investigation, applying civil and criminal powers to tackle avoidance, evasion, and error. In 2024–25, this approach helped protect an estimated £48 billion in tax revenue.
Its Strategic Picture of Risk combines data analytics and expert insight to assess key compliance risks. This informs HMRC’s planning, resource allocation, and case selection, using data from tax returns and third-party sources (e.g. banks, online platforms, other departments).
Compliance activity is tailored to taxpayer groups such as large businesses, individuals, and suspected tax avoiders or criminals. HMRC prioritises interventions based on their wider impact on tax compliance, economic objectives, and societal harm. HMRC’s compliance approach, Prevent, Promote and Respond, focuses on preventing non-compliance from happening in the first place, and helping customers get their tax right before they submit their return or claim.
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