- NAO report on Tackling tax evasion in high street and online retail
- HMRC estimates annual cost of tax evasion at £5 billion, most prevalent among small businesses
- Report assesses HMRC’s approach to tax evasion in retail, specific risk areas
- Specific risk areas include contrived business insolvency, VAT evasion by overseas retailers, sales suppression
- HMRC identified overseas retailers evading VAT online as significant risk
- Significant gaps in checks of online retailers noted
- Recommendations focus on developing effective controls to prevent evasion, including closer collaboration between HMRC and Companies House, working with online marketplaces, and tightening controls to prevent tax evasion.
Source: taxscape.deloitte.com
Note that this post was (partially) written with the help of AI. It is always useful to review the original source material, and where needed to obtain (local) advice from a specialist.
