Britain ‘lost’ £35bn in uncollected taxes last year
This article explains “The so-called ‘tax gap’, which is the difference between the amount of tax due and the total collected, was reduced from 8.1pc of revenues from the year before but critics argue that the figure is still too high.
The Coalition has pledged to make tax collection more efficient by simplifying the system and clamping down on tax evasion. Last year in the Spending Review George Osborne allocated £917m of funding to HM Revenue & Customs to tackle the tax gap and raise revenues of £7bn a year by 2014/15.”
How much rural regeneration would that pay for? There is a serious point here which suggests to me that the implementation of the tax laws are wrong never mind the debate about whether things like the 50% rate are fair. I guess the books are ironically balanced by the billions of unclaimed benefits which people are eligible for every year which go unclaimed.
This also makes me think of the current phase of the growth review and the interesting reflection one “little dickie bird” tells me (currently being considered by those leading the rural bit of it) about whether a different form of tax incentive to the current fashion for enetrprise zones could unlock more economic development in rural areas- by focusing more on the micro and small business agenda. Seems to me that there may well be some mileage in such an approach – what do you think?