{"id":817749,"date":"2026-10-29T16:50:12","date_gmt":"2026-10-29T16:50:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/817749\/"},"modified":"2026-10-29T16:50:12","modified_gmt":"2026-10-29T16:50:12","slug":"hmrc-puts-200-billionaires-on-uk-tax-crackdown-hitlist-the-super-rich","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/817749\/","title":{"rendered":"HMRC puts 200 billionaires on UK tax crackdown hitlist | The super-rich"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">The UK\u2019s tax authority is assigning dedicated \u201ccustomer compliance managers\u201d to more than 200 billionaires as part of a crackdown meant to raise \u00a3500m for the public purse.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) said it had for the first time compiled a list of billionaires who are required to pay tax in the UK, regardless of whether they formally live in the country, to tackle a \u201cwealthy tax gap\u201d caused by those who do not pay what they ought.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">In an announcement after Wednesday\u2019s budget, the authority <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gov.uk\/government\/publications\/hmrcs-approach-to-wealthy-compliance\/modernising-hmrcs-approach-to-wealthy-compliance\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">said it was allocating<\/a> a customer compliance manager (CCM) to each billionaire with a UK tax footprint, whose complex tax affairs are often hard for HMRC to manage.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">\u201cBillionaires can present a particular example of this, with affairs often spanning multiple taxes, entities and jurisdictions and a greater need for early and coordinated engagement,\u201d HMRC said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">It said the managers would offer voluntary discussions to each billionaire before they filed their taxes, to \u201chelp build a shared understanding of the customers\u2019 UK tax affairs and make subsequent engagement more focused and proportionate\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">The authority also plans to start deploying new tech to monitor wealthy individuals \u2013 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gov.uk\/government\/publications\/hmrcs-approach-to-wealthy-compliance\/modernising-hmrcs-approach-to-wealthy-compliance\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">defined as<\/a> those with income of more than \u00a3200,000 or assets over \u00a32m in any of the last three years \u2013 involving \u201cadvanced analytics, automated triggers and artificial intelligence (AI) to identify emerging risks earlier and target compliance activity where it will have greatest impact\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">It is part of wider efforts to tackle <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/business\/2025\/may\/16\/wealthy-britons-avoiding-more-tax-than-thought-spending-watchdog-says\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">the wealthy tax gap<\/a>, whereby rich people are failing to pay what they should if all of their assets were disclosed to the tax authority. The wealthy tax gap for 2024-25 was estimated to be worth \u00a33.6bn, equivalent to 6% of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gov.uk\/government\/statistics\/measuring-tax-gaps\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">total tax gap<\/a> across the UK\u2019s entire tax-paying population.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">The tax authority said its actions would contribute at least \u00a3500m towards a larger commitment to raise \u00a310bn of additional tax revenues by 2030.<\/p>\n<p><a data-ignore=\"global-link-styling\" href=\"#EmailSignup-skip-link-8\" class=\"dcr-76akua\">skip past newsletter promotion<\/a>Free newsletter |Every day<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-vf9hps\">Sign up to Headlines UK<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-djbwnz\">Get the day\u2019s headlines and highlights emailed direct to you every morning<\/p>\n<p><img src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/1793292612_564_500.jpg\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"dcr-gx9601\"\/><\/p>\n<p id=\"EmailSignup-skip-link-8\" tabindex=\"0\" aria-label=\"after newsletter promotion\" role=\"note\" class=\"dcr-76akua\">after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/politics\/2025\/jul\/16\/hmrc-criticised-by-watchdog-for-failing-to-track-billionaires-tax\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">HMRC was grilled in July last year by MPs<\/a> on the parliamentary public accounts committee over its lack of understanding of tax compliance by about 1.3 million wealthy taxpayers.\n <\/p>\n<p>Adam Craggs, the head of tax, investigations and financial crime at the law firm RPC, said anyone with more than \u00a3200,000 of annual income, or net assets above \u00a32m, should now \u201creflect on how clearly they understand and can evidence their UK tax position and their interaction with HMRC\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The UK\u2019s tax authority is assigning dedicated \u201ccustomer compliance managers\u201d to more than 200 billionaires as part of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":817750,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[84,59,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-817749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-gb","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/817749","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=817749"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/817749\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/817750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=817749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=817749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=817749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}