Lords committee gives proposed HMRC powers short shrift
Reading time: 2 minutes
Proposed powers that would let HMRC force financial institutions to provide information regarding people’s assets without their approval are “flawed”, a House of Lords committee has said.
In a new report, the Economics Affairs Committee criticised a proposal in the Finance Bill, which will become law if approved by Parliament next year.
The measure would force banks and other institutions and advisers to provide information about their customers if served with a “financial institution notice” by HMRC.
At present, HMRC may only request such information from a third party if the person agrees.
“[The committee] is very concerned about the removal of taxpayer safeguards for information requests, particularly the need to request permission from the tax tribunal,” the report said.
“These proposals are flawed and not supported by evidence.”
The UK government, however, said the changes are need to make it more expedient for HMRC to share information with foreign tax authorities.
In the 2019-20 tax year, HMRC requested a mere 49 international third party information notices out of 426 applications.
“The overwhelming majority of cases which go to the tax tribunal are domestic. It is disproportionate to deny UK taxpayers the tribunal safeguard for the sake of speeding up a small minority of cases involving international requests,” the committee said.
Share this article:
Subscribe to our newsletter to not miss articles like this one:
SUBSCRIBE
