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Unpaid Taxes

Asked by Sir John HayesConservativeTreasuryTabled Answered 13 January 2026UIN 102716

The question

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many full time equivalent HMRC staff are working on unpaid (a) VAT and (b) corporation tax recovery.

Answered by Dan Tomlinson

Our debt management workforce is deployed flexibly across all taxes to ensure efficient collection of debts owed and are not allocated to specific taxes. It is therefore not possible to provide a separate figure for staff working solely on VAT or corporation tax recovery.

HMRC publishes information on VAT and corporation tax losses in its Annual Report and Accounts, of which the most recent can be found here: HMRC Annual Report and Accounts 2024-25.

HMRC does not hold a separate breakdown of companies dissolved with unpaid VAT or corporation tax.

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