Treasury 'surprised' by £11bn tax write off

Date: 8th February 2012

The lines of communication between HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) and the Treasury could be set to improve in the near future.

That is after a new report brought to light the fact that the Treasury was "surprised" to learn that HMRC wrote off almost £11 billion of unpaid tax in one year, the Press Association reported.

A total of £10.9 billion was written off in the 2009-10 tax year but the Treasury was unaware of this until the first Whole of Government Accounts (WGA) were published earlier this month.

The Public Accounts Committee, a cross-party group of MPs, claimed that the Treasury had no knowledge of the amount, but said the WGA reports will help the government identify the risks it faces in the future.

"We were surprised to find that Treasury did not have a grip on trends in some key areas of risk or plans for managing them," the report said.

The committee also told the news provider that despite the WGA representing the "most ambitious public sector account prepared anywhere in the world", it was disappointed that it had taken the government 20 months to prepare the accounts.

Posted by Emily Smith