The tax gap in Britain remains stubbornly high at £36bn. After 14 years in power, the Tories have lost all focus and energy in tackling tax compliance and avoidance. They have weakened the deterrent effect of prosecutions and penalties, with falling numbers of criminal investigations for tax evasion.

At a time when the tax burden on working people is rising, Labour will relentlessly pursue the money that is owed, with a plan to make sure people pay the right tax in the first place and that directly tackles tax avoidance and evasion.

Labour’s plan would:

• Boost compliance activities in HMRC, recovering more tax revenues from those seeking to avoid it.
• Invest in technology transformation in the tax system to improve the customer experience and reduce the tax gap.
• Make legal changes to support this effort, restoring a genuine deterrent to tax evasion and making sure people pay their taxes in the first place.

These changes would raise £5bn a year by the end of the parliament.

As well as this package, we will be undertaking further detailed work to turn our tax system around through modernisation of HMRC. This will further reduce the tax gap from error and avoidance, alongside improving the experience for individual taxpayers and driving productivity gains for businesses.