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ARTICLE · 02 APRIL 2025

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Blowing The Whistle: HMRC's New Informant Incentive Scheme

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HM Treasury has announced the introduction of a new reward scheme designed to encourage informants to come forward to HMRC about tax fraud.

GlobalTax
Gideon Sanitt
Gideon Sanitt
Helen Harvey
Helen Harvey
Victoria Braid
Victoria Braid

HM Treasury has announced the introduction of a new reward scheme designed to encourage informants to come forward to HMRC about tax fraud. This initiative is inspired by the whistleblower models in the US and Canada, and is part of the Government's broader strategy of enhancing tax compliance and preventing tax avoidance.

Closing the tax gap

This announcement comes in the wake of the Chancellor's Autumn Budget, which underscored the Government's commitment to closing the tax gap.

The "tax gap" is the difference between the amount of tax owed and the amount of tax collected. In the latest published data (for 2022/23), the tax gap was estimated to be 4.8% of total theoretical tax liabilities, or £39.8bn in absolute terms.

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