Following the recommendations of the FDA, the government has announced that 5,000 additional HMRC staff will be recruited to close the “tax gap” and recover more money for the public purse. 

Before Parliament entered recess, Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury James Murray stated that the government “will take a comprehensive approach to tackling the tax gap and making sure more of the tax revenues that are owed are correctly paid.

“The government will invest in HMRC’s compliance work, hiring around 5,000 additional staff to recover more tax revenues. HMRC has already started the process of recruiting additional staff into compliance roles.”

The minister also stated that the government “will also invest in HMRC’s technology infrastructure, helping to make HMRC more efficient and improve taxpayers’ experience of interacting with HMRC.” 

This announcement follows the Funding the Nation report from the FDA’s HMRC section – the Association of Revenue and Customs – which demonstrated how a new government could return £11.3bn by investing in compliance, customer services and improving technology.

Reacting to this announcement, FDA National Officer for HMRC Matt Barrow said: 

“This announcement is a clear example of how our campaigning has tangible outcomes.

“Our campaign started by listening to our members – what barriers they face and how those barriers could be removed. The brilliant engagement from our members formed the basis of our report’s recommendations, which were endorsed by a number of the UK’s leading tax experts and were subsequently included in Labour’s election manifesto.

“Now our recommendations can be found in official government policy – helping to support HMRC to optimise tax revenue and support the delivery of public spending priorities.”

ARC President Tom Langrish added: 

Read more about Funding the Nation and see the full list of recommendations, plus the report’s parliamentary launch.