Tax amnesty 'to bring in £2bn'

Date: 22nd May 2009

A planned new tax amnesty by the government could bring in as much as £2 billion to the coffers, it has been claimed.

Accountancy Age reports that PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) predicts HM Revenue and Customs' plans to hold a tax amnesty will result in around £2 billion in unpaid tax from offshore savers being handed over to the government.

Ministers are keen to launch the new amnesty in a bid to boost the amount of tax revenue coming into the public purse after the chancellor announced public debt would rise to record levels over the course of 2009.

"Using the estimate of tax lost in these new Special Commissioners' decisions and applying it across the population of 500 or so institutions that HMRC is engaged with, it is estimated that HMRC will recover more than £2 billion in unpaid tax in this second and final amnesty," PwC tax partner Stephen Camm told the publication.

Earlier this week, prime minister Gordon Brown expressed his regret at having to raise the top rate of tax for high earners in last month's Budget.

He told members of the Confederation of British Industry it had not been his or chancellor Alistair Darling's "desire" to raise the rate, but insisted it is a necessary measure to help Britain through the recession.