Revenue and Customs: Debts
The question
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how much money that is owed to HMRC by a) businesses and b) taxpayers has not been collected as a percentage over the previous five years.
Answered by Dan Tomlinson
HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) publishes information on the total amount of tax debt owed to it, but does not publish a breakdown of the debt balance between businesses and individual taxpayers.
The Government is taking significant action to reduce tax debt. Since Autumn Budget 2024, HMRC has received £782 million of additional investment in its debt management activities, which is expected to help collect more than £12 billion of additional debt by the end of 2030-31.
HMRC published an update to its tax debt strategy at Budget 2025, outlining how the recent investment is helping to close the tax gap and reduce tax debt year-on-year as a percentage of receipts. At 31 March 2025, HMRC's tax debt balance stood at £42.8 billion, equivalent to 5.0% of total tax receipts. This compares with a tax debt balance of £43.0 billion at 31 March 2024, equivalent to 5.2% of total tax receipts.
HMRC publishes quarterly performance updates on GOV.UK. You can find this here https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/hmrc-quarterly-performance-updates
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