A few people have asked me what I think of this list. Some of the items are realistic. Some (including the big ticket items) are not. Some are too vague to assess.

https://twitter.com/NadiaWhittomeMP/status/1942306996834951463

Significant sums can be raised by raising capital gains tax, BUT you have to reform the tax significantly, in particular make sure you only tax real gains, not inflationary gains. Otherwise you'll knacker investment and lose tax, not raise it. See taxpolicy.org.uk/2024/10/16/how…

Last year Andrea* received this from HMRC. £9,595 penalties for not filing a tax return

But Andrea suffered from mental health difficulties for years, earning almost no income. She owed zero tax

Over the last 5 years, 600,000 penalties have been issued to people like Andrea Our full report on Andrea* and the 600,000 is here, with all the data and references.



And thread below.

*Andrea of course not her real nametaxpolicy.org.uk/hmrc-late-fili…

A 'tax adviser' pushing smears seeded by Russian disinformation - cocaine, rent-boys, the lot - to flog a Gibraltar "zero-tax" company that in reality lands clients with big HMRC bills and penalties.

The strangest tax scam we’ve uncovered. Thread 👇
Of if you want to go straight to our full report, with complete documents and links/references: taxpolicy.org.uk/offshore-advis…

The UK tax paradox:

1️⃣ The tax burden is at a post-war high, and 52% of us say we're over-taxed.

2️⃣ Yet the average UK worker paid less tax on their wages in 2024 than any previous year. And less than peers in the other big European countries.

How can both be true?

🧵 Full explainer here, with interactive charts for the bored, and footnotes for the truly committed:

taxpolicy.org.uk/2025/06/27/uk-…

Zia Yusuf has published a response to our report on the Reform UK "Britannia card" proposal. It's disappointing: heavy on insults, light on substance, and revealing that Mr Yusuf cites an OBR paper he hasn't read.

https://x.com/ZiaYusufUK/status/1937247693971308754

I won't respond to the insults, but people who have actual arguments don't need to accuse people of writing "drivel" and being "outlandishly stupid". This is playground stuff.

A few people have asked for a shorter summary of our piece on the Reform UK "Britannia card" proposal.

We've also updated our report with a full copy of the Reform UK paper. Quick thread: Reform UK have fallen into the trap of forgetting there are many different types of "non-doms":

Reform UK is proposing a "Britannia card" that would let wealthy foreigners pay a £250k fee to move to the UK, and live here exempt from all tax on their foreign assets.

What they don't say: it would cost the UK £34bn.

Thread: For many years someone moving to the UK was a "non-dom" - paying tax on UK income/assets but exempt from tax on foreign income/assets (unless they brought them into the UK).

40% of all corporation tax owed by small businesses isn't paid. How has this happened, without anyone noticing or caring?

Because nobody wants to talk about it.

These reactions to the latest HMRC tax gap figures are typical:
If you missed it, here's our report from yesterday on the latest HMRC data, with the astonishing 40% stat: taxpolicy.org.uk/2025/06/19/the…

New data reveals that 40% of corporation tax due from small businesses isn’t being paid.

It’s a hidden crisis that costs the UK £15 billion a year — and HMRC has quietly lost control.

Thread. The "tax gap" is all the tax that should be paid, but isn't.

People wanting clicks and headlines claim most of the tax gap is the mega-wealthy and large corporations. People looking at the data know it's like this:

Just on Times Radio talking about the Green Party wealth tax proposal. The usual populist stuff about magically raising lots of money from Other People. But in reality the Green Party manifesto raised marginal income tax rate to *72%* for a graduate with three kids earning £60k. That's thanks to the interaction between the Green Party proposal to end the "cap" on national insurance contributions, and the existing rules for student loans and child benefit. Unclear the Green Party understood this. I wrote about the issue here: taxpolicy.org.uk/2024/06/07/gre…

Starmer is correct. We can't tax our way to growth.

But we can *tax reform* our way to growth. Some ideas: 1. Corporation tax simplification. The UK corporate tax system is currently less competitive than Italy or Greece, never mind Sweden and Denmark. ft.com/content/9a9515…

Our new report: local political parties are renting out office space to MPs — who claim the cost on expenses.

But in most cases, they pay no tax on that income — or on rent from local businesses.

We reviewed 630 sets of accounts. What we found is a systemic failure. 🧵 Our full report is here, with all the data, links to the accounts and the code we used to analyse everything. taxpolicy.org.uk/2025/05/11/pol…

Here's Gary Stevenson calling for a return to the 1970s, when the top rate of tax was 98%. But did the rich ever pay it?

We spoke to 1970s tax dodgers and ex-HMRC staff & and crunched the data.

A 🧵, but here's a spoiler: the rich pay more tax *now*. A much longer version of this thread is here, with references, links to sources and footnotes taxpolicy.org.uk/2025/05/08/tax…

ZLX — the R&D tax firm that sued a client for refusing to claim a £30k tax refund for installing a fridge — has quietly rebranded.

Meet TaxTek.

Same people. Same nonsense. New name.

🧵👇 Our new report: taxpolicy.org.uk/2025/04/10/zlx…

Compelling article in yesterday's Telegraph on Frankie Dettori's fight to keep his tax avoidance secret. Not paywalled - recommended for anyone interested in tax/tax avoidance/horses

& I'm publishing below all the legal documents from Dettori's attempt to stay anonymous The Telegraph piece is here. It is really good - wish I'd written it. telegraph.co.uk/racing/2025/04…

Today might be the day Donald Trump slaps tariffs on UK goods — because he thinks VAT is a tariff. Yes, he's wrong. But the reason *why* he's wrong is surprisingly deep.

So here's a 🧵 on the nerdy detail of VAT: via beer, Jaffa Cakes and an economic theorem from 1936. Obviously I'm really here to promote my new Radio 4 series, Untaxing. The episode on Jaffa Cake airs at 1.45pm today.

I receive a tax rebate for every listener.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00…

Just really disappointing to see someone repeating an internet myth on primetime TV without doing five seconds of research first.

The rule that applies the lower rate of stamp duty for purchases of six properties was introduced in 2003, when SDLT was created.

https://twitter.com/garyseconomics/status/1906723023102656583

We wrote about it last year. It's literally there in a Google search. taxpolicy.org.uk/2024/06/03/the…

Wow! A new tax grab on savers! How did I miss that?

Thread

(spoiler: I didn't. There is no "tax grab". Someone's got a bit too excited). The Telegraph is smushing together two announcements that accompanied the Spring Statement, and then jumping to an entertainingly paranoid conclusion.

t wasn't mentioned in the Chancellor's speech, but the Spring Statement papers contain a major suite of anti-tax avoidance proposals, probably the toughest ever introduced.

Thread: Longer version of this thread here, with full links to sources: taxpolicy.org.uk/2025/03/26/rad…

Last week we launched a free webapp that shows the tens of thousands of UK companies whose ownership is being hidden, in most cases unlawfully.

It's now easier to use, faster, and has way more features. Quick thread. You can jump to the app and instructions here: taxpolicy.org.uk/2025/03/19/500…

Excellent and detailed FT piece this week on the £100,000 "childcare trap".

If someone earns £99,999 and claims the Governments childcare subsidies, then a £1 pay rise can *cost them* £20,000. They don't get back to where they were until their gross wages reach £145k.

So in this situation it's not rational for someone just under £100k to accept a pay rise/promotion, work more hours, take on more clients etc, unless it puts them well clear of £100k