The department will deploy new technology while making use of a range of information sources, including national newspaper rich lists, to build a more complete picture of the wealthiest individuals
Leaders of HM Revenue and Customs have revealed that the tax agency aims to improve its use of digital and data to increase its understanding of the economic affairs of billionaires – and thereby bring in hundreds of millions of pounds in additional tax revenue.
Earlier this year, senior HMRC officials told parliament’s Public Accounts Committee about the department’s plans to close a current gap of nearly £2bn in the tax collected from the UK’s 850,000 wealthiest taxpayers. This includes the establishment of a Wealthy Complex Cross Tax and Offshore Team which, by March 2026, will be staffed by 120 people, according to correspondence recently sent to PAC by HMRC chief executive John-Paul Marks. These new recruits – empowered by accompanying investments in tech – will be key to making good on the department’s aim of bringing in an additional £500m in tax related to offshore assets held by the very richest individuals.
The departmental leader was responding in particular to enquiries from the committee concerning HMRC’s “plans for improving its understanding of the wealth and assets held by the wealthiest individuals, including billionaires”, and whether it could and should request more data from those individuals – as well as leaning on third-party sources such as the Sunday Times Rich List. MPs also requested details on “work [HMRC] will undertake… to better understand the links between personal wealth and connected entities, including complex trusts and structures”.
Marks noted that “it is not a requirement in UK law for individuals to report on their total wealth, or to report worldwide assets unless there are chargeable UK taxable income or gains arising from those assets”.
Accordingly, HMRC currently makes judgements on the potential compliance risks posed by billionaires and other extremely wealthy people by taking into account “a combination of factors including wealth, complexity and opportunity”.
“Given individuals do not have to report their total wealth to HMRC, we currently estimate wealth using a variety of data sources,” the CEO added. “Through international collaboration and compliance work, HMRC identifies potential opportunities to obtain data that would be beneficial for tax compliance purposes. We have provided leadership internationally, working with other tax authorities to reduce gaps in data and intelligence.”
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More information on the country’s wealthiest people will also be obtained via a new global legal framework requiring the reporting of holdings in crypto assets – including the likes of Bitcoin, Ethereum and other virtual currencies.
“HMRC uses a range of data sources, insight and intelligence to understand the compliance risks posed by all wealthy individuals, including billionaires,” Marks added. “This includes, but is not limited to, self-assessment returns data, data received from overseas tax jurisdictions under automatic exchange of information, third party data and open-source data, including the Sunday Times Rich List. HMRC will continue to enhance our understanding of billionaires with a UK tax footprint.”
He added: “We will provide the committee with assurance that all billionaires with a UK tax footprint that are identified as part of our annual refresh of the wealthy population have an allocated customer compliance manager (CCM). CCMs are senior tax professionals who provide extra scrutiny of individuals who have complex tax affairs and support customers to get their tax right first time. This activity is informed by a combination of data sources, including the Sunday Times Rich List, alongside operational expertise to ensure we understand these individuals and their associated entities, and that any tax risk, if present, is being addressed.”
All of which will enable “improved data flows” that will help power the work of the new complex tax team, according to the HMRC boss.
“HMRC will use investment in digital infrastructure and technology to gain a fuller understanding of wealthy individuals, their connected entities and their tax affairs and, in doing so, improve HMRC’s customer service and compliance performance,” Marks said, pointing MPs towards the tax agency’s recently published Transformation Roadmap. “More broadly, HMRC is investing in case-management systems to improve targeting of compliance work and enhanced risking capabilities to identify cases for investigation.”
The CEO added: “[By 2029/30], HMRC will expand its counter-fraud capability to increase the number of annual charging decisions addressing the most harmful fraud by 20%. The additional criminal investigations that underpin this will focus on delivering a strong deterrent effect and will include tackling fraud committed by the wealthy and by individuals and companies who make it possible for others to hide money offshore.”
