HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) has nearly doubled the amount paid to individuals providing tip-offs about suspected tax evasion, disbursing almost £1 million (£978,256) in the 2023/24 financial year compared to £508,500 the previous year.
The increase comes amid growing pressure to reduce the UK’s £39.8 billion tax gap—the difference between the tax that should be collected and what is actually received.
According to data obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by accountancy firm Price Bailey, HMRC received 151,763 anonymous tip-offs via its fraud hotline in 2023/24, slightly fewer than the 157,270 reports in 2022/23 but still the second-highest in seven years.
Andrew Park, Tax Investigations Partner at Price Bailey, described the payouts as “paltry” when measured against the billions lost to tax fraud annually. He suggested that significantly increasing rewards could incentivize more individuals to come forward with high-quality information. “A transparent system in which the reward is proportionate to the amount of tax recovered would go a long way to encouraging big-ticket tip-offs,” Park said.
Price Bailey highlighted the contrast with the United States, where the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) offers substantially larger rewards. In the most recent financial year, the IRS paid out $89 million to 121 whistleblowers, leading to the recovery of $338 million in taxes—averaging $735,537 per whistleblower.
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