Select committee: Public Accounts Committee
Conclusion 17
23rd Report - The cost of the tax system
Published 30 Apr 2025
Addressed to HM Treasury
Public Accounts Committee The cost of the tax system All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Conclusion (the committee's words)
We asked HMRC why it provided additional support to large business. HMRC told us customer compliance managers were there to manage the risks large business pose to tax revenue and not to give them a better 25 HMRC has reported the change for small businesses was not statistically significant, year on year. C&AG’s Report, para 3.3 26 Qq 33, 35 27 HMRC, The HMRC Charter, updated 30 July 2024 28 C&AG’s Report, para 3.18 29 HMRC, HMRC internal manual: Customs Civil Penalties Guidance, updated 28 October 2024, section CCPG21500–HMRC roles: role of Customer Compliance Manager 30 HMRC, HMRC’s compliance approach for large businesses, updated 10 April 2024, section Customer Compliance Managers 12 service. It said its approach was to “man–mark” each large business to understand the risks they pose and their attitude to tax compliance, and then decide the resources HMRC need to deploy to tackle the risks.31 31 Q 25 13 2 HMRC’s compliance performance and use of technology HMRC’s compliance performance
From: Public Accounts Committee, 23rd Report - The cost of the tax system (HC 645), 30 April 2025
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 18 September 2025.
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The government states that it "agrees with the Committee's recommendation" on each of the report's recommendations, and reports that several are already implemented while others carry target dates.
- On simplification, the government will publish HMRC's Transformation Roadmap in summer 2025, which "will include the metrics HMRC will use to report progress".
- On trust, the government agrees with both recommendations and describes them as "Recommendation implemented", citing annual customer surveys, complaints data and focus groups.
- On compliance productivity, it says HMRC "will recruit an additional 5,500 compliance staff by March 2030", alongside other measures to close the tax gap.
- On legacy IT, HMRC "will write to the Committee" on its remediation plans, forecast cost and expected savings, with a target implementation date of September 2025.