HMRC's annual report and accounts 2020 to 2021: performance overview
Updated 24 November 2021
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A summary of HMRC’s performance in 2020 to 2021, including our vision, objectives, commitments, risks and outcomes
2020 to 2021: our year at a glance
We supported our customers and delivered our core purpose of collecting revenue to fund public services
£608.8 billion total tax revenues
£30.4 billion additional tax generated through tackling avoidance, evasion and other non-compliance
0.59p cost for every £1 of tax collected
6.3 million Self Assessment customers helped by phone or webchat in the month before 31 January deadline
85.2% customer satisfaction with our digital services
We continued working to build a trusted, modern tax and customs department
1.5 million businesses actively using Making Tax Digital for VAT during 2020 to 2021
7 standards set out in our updated HMRC Charter, showing customers what they can expect when they deal with us
4 further regional centres opened, providing modern, collaborative workspaces
127 legacy IT systems decommissioned to improve resilience and security
Our work was at the centre of the government’s response to COVID-19
11.5 million jobs supported through the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme up to 31 March 2021
2.7 million people supported by the Self-Employment Income Support Scheme up to 31 March 2021
more than 9,000 HMRC colleagues redeployed to support customers using financial support schemes
more than 80 tax policy changes and clarifications to support customers and the economy during the pandemic
more than £840 million protected up to 31 March 2021 through preventing or recovering overpayments of COVID-19 support scheme grants
We took action to support the UK’s international trade
more than 3,000 businesses supported to prepare for the end of UK’s transition from the EU
over 80,000 calls answered on our customs and international trade helpline
more than 359,000 declarations processed by our free Northern Ireland Trader Support Service
3,000 colleagues trained in process and system changes to support customers for the end of the UK’s transition period
Foreword from Jim Harra, Chief Executive and First Permanent Secretary
When I look back over the year covered by this annual report, I feel immense pride at the way my colleagues responded to the unprecedented circumstances caused by COVID-19.
From the outset, we played a vital role at the heart of the government’s economic response to the pandemic. It meant prioritising our resources to ensure that we kept delivering our core purpose of administering the tax system – while also delivering vital COVID-19 support to protect millions of jobs and help businesses get through an extremely challenging time.
The pandemic showed how a trusted, modern tax administration system is crucial to the UK’s national resilience and crisis management capability. It also showed HMRC values at their best – more than 60,000 public servants pulling together with confidence and capability to support the economy and look after our customers and each other.
Getting on with business in exceptional times
Throughout this exceptionally challenging year, we kept all our core services running and ensured customers could access the right help when they needed it. To do this, we had to make choices about how we balanced our resources – for example, we took the conscious decision to divert some of our skilled advisers from PAYE and Self Assessment services to provide COVID-19 support because that’s what individuals and small businesses needed from us most urgently at a time of acute crisis.
This meant that wait times on some of our helplines were longer than we would have liked. But at the same time, customer satisfaction with our digital services reached an all-time high of 88.5% in August 2020. We introduced a range of new digital services and increased our provision of webchats as a flexible alternative to phone calls, holding 3.1 million webchats with customers during 2020 to 2021.
Inevitably, the scale of the economic impact caused by COVID-19 had some effect on tax revenue and we saw customer debt levels rise significantly during the year. If individuals and businesses are generating less taxable income, there is less revenue to collect – but we also enabled many customers impacted by the pandemic to defer payments of VAT and Income Tax to help them survive financially.
We took a sympathetic approach to those struggling to pay their tax or file their returns on time, while continuing to collect revenue from those customers who were in a position to pay and to take action against avoidance and evasion in all its forms.
At the same time, we delivered on other urgent priorities – including changes to Customs to support the UK’s transition from the European Union. We implemented major process and system changes, opened new Customs facilities at the border and inland, and helped thousands of traders to understand and prepare for the new trading rules.
Building a trusted, modern tax and customs department
The impact of the pandemic has reinforced the importance of a flexible, resilient and responsive tax and customs system. Thanks to skilled HMRC colleagues, many working from their kitchen tables and spare bedrooms, we were able to launch major financial support like the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme and the Self-Employment Income Support Scheme within a few short weeks of the start of lockdown.
We took steps in the design of the financial support schemes to protect them from error and fraud as far as possible while balancing with speed of delivery. We set up a new Taxpayer Protection Taskforce to recover amounts claimed incorrectly. We also implemented more than 80 other temporary policy changes or clarifications.
In July 2020, the importance of this work to the UK economy was recognised in the government’s ten-year tax administration strategy, published jointly by HMRC and HM Treasury. It sets out the government’s proposals for building a trusted, modern tax administration system – one that keeps pace with the rapid changes in society, the economy and technology and helps the UK build back better from the pandemic. The Chancellor invested £200 million into projects to support this at the March 2021 Budget.
Our strategy commits us to establishing a fully digital tax system that helps people to get their tax right first time, makes it harder to bend or break the rules and maintains taxpayer trust and consent by operating in a fair and even-handed way. It will also help us to provide more targeted support in the face of future national crises. We recognise there are challenges to overcome – for example, in upgrading many of our IT and data security systems – but our work in these areas has accelerated during 2020 to 2021 and will continue in 2021 to 2022 and beyond.
Making Tax Digital (MTD) is at the heart of our plans to build a trusted, modern tax system. It is helping to drive the development of new software products that support good tax compliance and deliver wider benefits for businesses beyond managing their tax affairs.
To maintain public trust and consent in the way we administer the tax system, we’ve launched a revised HMRC Charter that sets out what our customers can expect from us. We are also taking major steps to modernise the way we work. We agreed landmark reforms to our employee contracts and pay this year, allowing us to work more flexibly and respond better to changing customer needs.
We have now opened 7 of our 13 new state-of-the-art regional centres – and 85% of our people are based outside London, including 50% of our senior roles. We have also committed to making HMRC a more inclusive workplace and achieving carbon Net Zero by 2040.
Underpinning all this, we have 5 new strategic objectives that will provide the framework for our planning over the next Spending Review period.
As the UK rebuilds from a period of crisis, HMRC’s role in securing the revenue to help fund our public services and supporting our customers and the economy will be more important than ever. I believe that our achievements during the pandemic have shown we have the competence, capability and resilience to keep delivering for our customers and build the trusted, modern tax system the UK needs for the future.
Awards for our COVID-19 response
Outstanding Achievement in Tax: Tolley’s Taxation Awards
Best IT Team: REAL IT Awards
Programme of the year: APM Project Management Awards
Public Service Award: Civil Service Award
Gold: Customer Contact Association Awards
Silver: Public Service Communications Awards
Special Award: Chartered Institute of Payroll Professionals Awards
DevOps Team of the Year: DevOps Industry Awards
Best Public Sector IT Project: UK IT Industry Awards
Special Pandemic Award: AI and Machine Learning Awards
About HMRC
Our purpose
Our purpose is to collect the money that pays for the UK’s public services and give financial support to people. As the UK’s tax, payments and customs authority, our work touches the lives of almost everyone in the country – including around 45 million individuals and 5 million businesses.
Our vision
Our vision is to be a trusted, modern tax and customs department.
Our values
Our values are more important to us than ever. Achieving our vision is dependent on how we act, just as much as on systems, data and processes.
We are professional
We act with integrity
We show respect
We are innovative
Our Charter
We are committed to improving our customer experience and the HMRC Charter defines the service and standard of behaviour that our customers should expect when interacting with us.
How we are organised
We are led by Jim Harra, our First Permanent Secretary and Chief Executive, and Angela MacDonald, our Second Permanent Secretary and Deputy Chief Executive. Our department is made up of 4 core customer-focused groups supported by a range of corporate services, as set out below:
| Our core customer groups | Purpose of customer group |
|---|---|
| Customer Strategy and Tax Design | Leads on the delivery of policy changes, and designs the tax and payments system in order to improve customer experience supporting HMRC’s vision and objectives |
| Borders and Trade | Responsible for the policy, design and delivery of our accountabilities for UK transition and delivery of customs revenue at the border, working closely with Border Force |
| Customer Services | Supports customers to pay the right tax and get the right benefits, helps those who have built up debt to pay what they owe, and helps businesses to run smoothly and within the law |
| Customer Compliance | Ensures the right tax is paid and steps in with targeted intervention when there is a risk of that not happening |
| Our corporate services | Purpose of corporate service |
|---|---|
| Chief People Officer Group | Develops and oversees the effective implementation of HR policies that support colleagues and improves their working experience, with overall responsibility for our workforce planning, recruitment, talent and learning activities |
| Chief Finance Officer Group | Provides the systems, tools, processes and controls for ensuring the smooth, safe and effective running of HMRC |
| Chief Digital and Information Officer Group | Creates innovative, joined up and reliable digital and information services for our people and our customers while ensuring we hold data in a way that is secure, proportionate, protected and meets the requirements of the law |
| Solicitor’s Office and Legal Services | Provides legal services to the whole of HMRC |
| Transformation Group | Leads and manages cross-cutting transformational change within HMRC and oversees our response to the pandemic, through the COVID-19 Response Programme |
| Communications | Provides professional communications advice, support and services to the whole of HMRC and incorporates HMRC’s Sustainability Team |
As well as the groups described above, our full departmental group includes:
- Valuation Office Agency (VOA): an executive agency which gives the government the valuations and property advice needed to support taxation and benefits
- Revenue and Customs Digital Technology Services Limited (RCDTS Ltd): a non-profit making company wholly controlled by and operated for HMRC which supplies the department with IT services
Our departmental group had almost 62,000 full-time equivalent employees at the end of financial year 2020 to 2021
Performance summary: 2020 to 2021
This was a unique financial year for HMRC, as we delivered our core purpose alongside vital services at the heart of the government’s COVID-19 response and supported the UK’s transition from the EU.
We are proud to have continued collecting revenue for public services, tackling non-compliance and delivering vital benefits for families, while acting on government priorities swiftly and effectively at a time of national crisis.
In previous years, we have set out our objectives and public commitments in a Single Departmental Plan. However, in line with Cabinet Office guidance we were not required to publish a Single Departmental Plan for financial year 2020 to 2021. This was due to the need for all government departments to adapt their plans to the COVID-19 pandemic and the need to respond quickly to urgent government priorities.
For the same reason we did not set formal performance targets for 2020 to 2021, although we continued to publish performance updates during the year. We used rolling quarterly expectations to benchmark performance, publishing expected delivery for compliance yield in advance for quarters 2, 3 and 4 and for customer service in quarter 4.
As part of this performance summary, we have included the 30 commitments that we have been working to over the course of the year and the status of each one at year end.
Read our quarterly performance updates.
Our strategic objectives
In Spring 2021, we updated our strategic objectives to set out what we will do over the coming years to achieve our vision. We make links to these new strategic objectives throughout our Performance Summary and our Performance Analysis in this year’s report, to show how they connect with and build on the work we did in 2020 to 2021.
Strategic objectives
Collect the right tax and pay out the right financial support
Make it easy to get tax right and hard to bend or break the rules
Maintain taxpayers’ consent through fair treatment and protect society from harm
Make HMRC a great place to work
Support wider government economic aims through a resilient, agile tax administration system
Collecting revenue and managing compliance
5.3% Estimated UK tax gap in 2019 to 2020
£30.4 billion
additional tax generated by tackling avoidance, evasion and non-compliance
£608.8 billion total tax revenues collected
£57.5 billion debt balance
To ensure we could continue collecting the revenues that pay for public services throughout the pandemic, we adjusted our approach to reflect the changed needs of our customers and support the economy at a difficult time. Despite the challenges of the year, we collected £608.8 billion in total tax revenues – lower than the £636.7 billion collected in the previous financial year, but higher than initial forecasts at the start of the pandemic.
Our debt balance increased during the pandemic. At the end of 2020 to 2021 we held £57.5 billion of debt – around £35 billion more than last year – but much of this increase was due to the choices the government made to support customers and the economy by temporarily deferring VAT and Self Assessment Income Tax payments. Where people could not deal with our compliance enquiries, we deferred these if possible.
We still took compliance action if we suspected criminal activity or deliberate non-compliance – and we continued to take action to protect customers and the tax system from harm, with new measures to tackle evasion, promoters of tax avoidance and other forms of non-compliance.
We saw a drop in compliance yield to £30.4 billion, compared to £36.9 billion in the previous year, in part due to the unprecedented economic circumstances and also as a result of decisions we took to defer compliance activity and redeploy staff to customer service work on COVID-19 support schemes.
Our commitments
In financial year 2020 to 2021, alongside all of our work on collecting revenues and managing compliance, we made 7 specific commitments in this area. The table below outlines the status of each one at the end of 2020 to 2021.
| Commitment description | Status |
|---|---|
| Deliver Budget 2020 measures to tackle tax avoidance, evasion and other forms of non-compliance that will raise an additional £4.7 billion between now and 2024-25. | On track or complete |
| Introduce a new package of anti-evasion measures, including measures to end tax abuse in the construction sector and crack down on illicit tobacco packaging, finalising in 2021-22. | On track or complete |
| Implement recommendations made by the Independent Loan Charge Review and accepted by the government, legislating in Finance Bill 2020-21. | On track or complete |
| Tackle promoters of tax avoidance including preparing legislation for the Finance Bill 2020-21 to take further action against those who promote and market tax avoidance schemes. | On track or complete |
| Implement the Off Payroll Working Programme in April 2021. | On track or complete |
| Implement the Digital Services Tax. | On track or complete |
| Consolidate existing anti-evasion and avoidance measures and powers. | On track or complete |
Improving customer experience
630 COVID-19 support webinars for customers
85.2%
customer satisfaction with our digital services
+72.2 Net Easy score on our digital services
97,162 customers helped by our Extra Support service
We recorded some of the highest ever customer satisfaction levels with our digital services during 2020 to 2021, with particularly high scores on our COVID-19 support schemes. We also saw an increase in positive ratings from individuals, small businesses and agents for all measures of customer experience.
Overall, our helplines received 33.3 million calls – 8.3 million less than the previous year. Average waiting times were significantly longer, in particular on our Self Assessment and PAYE lines – primarily because we chose to divert skilled advisers to provide the COVID-19 support our customers needed most urgently. The average waiting time on our COVID-19 helplines was significantly shorter at 5:08 minutes. Customers on other lines, such as tax credits, Child Benefit and Tax-Free Childcare, experienced a service broadly in line with a normal year.
We introduced a range of digital services over the course of the pandemic – for example, holding more than 3 million webchats with customers, using digital stamps to avoid paper handling and introducing a virtual assistant to help customers find answers to common questions more easily. We also introduced measures for customers struggling to pay taxes on time. For example, Self Assessment customers could set up a payment plan online to spread their tax bill over a period up to 12 months.
For agents, we improved on our positivity ratings for 2020 compared to 2019, but we did not always provide the level of service that we would like. We are seeking to address this in 2021 to 2022.
We also took other important steps to improve the overall customer experience: preparing for the further roll-out of MTD, working to improve the language and tone of our letters and guidance, and launching a new version of the HMRC Charter in November 2020 that sets out what customers can expect from us.
Note
‘Net Easy’ is a score from a survey conducted on digital services asking ‘how easy was it to deal with us today?’ It represents the total number of positive responses minus the negative responses.
Our commitments
In financial year 2020 to 2021, alongside all of our work on improving customer experience, we made 5 specific commitments in this area. The table below outlines the status of each one at the end of 2020 to 2021.
| Commitment description | Status |
|---|---|
| Continue to deliver the Making Tax Digital (MTD) programme. Status update: We have applied an Amber rating, in recognition of the scale of implementation for Income Tax Self Assessment (ITSA) over the years ahead. We are currently managing risks around the scope of delivery to develop a deliverable roadmap that we will actively communicate with our stakeholders. Over 2020 to 2021 we continued preparations to mandate MTD for Income Tax Self Assessment, which will now be introduced for businesses and landlords with income exceeding £10,000 in the tax year beginning in April 2024. We are continuing to gradually expand the ITSA pilot to allow more customers to test the service and have laid secondary legislation to introduce MTD for ITSA. During 2020 to 2021 we continued to expand the MTD VAT service, in readiness for extending mandation of MTD to VAT-registered businesses with a turnover below £85,000 from April 2022. We have legislated for MTD to be introduced to all VAT-registered businesses, laying regulations on 7 September 2021. We are migrating taxpayers onto our new Enterprise Tax Management Platform (ETMP). ETMP will enable us to provide an enhanced, more coherent user experience across our digital services, paving the way for a single master customer record which will provide businesses with a single picture of their tax affairs in one place. | Risk delivery |
| Deliver our Contact Engagement Programme by: replacing digital engagement, telephony, data and reporting services presently delivered by KCOM with a new and improved set of operational capabilities, processes, tools and technology by January 2022. This will enable us to transform how we interact with customers and improve their experience; rolling out our Advisor User Interface (AUI) in 2020 to 2021. Status update: This programme of work is partially complete with new telephony and data services being used by 24,000 colleagues this year. The necessary shift to home working for many colleagues during the pandemic has slowed the roll out of the programme. | Risk to delivery |
| Improve our Child Benefit service by moving it to a new IT platform by the end of 2021. | On track or complete |
| Continue to support the Department for Work and Pensions with the introduction of Universal Credit and close the tax credits system in 2025 (natural transitions to Universal Credit from tax credits as a result of a change in circumstances continued as normal, but further pilot activities to move tax credits customers to Universal Credit were paused by the Department for Work and Pensions due to the impact of the pandemic. This activity is planned to restart in early 2022, however the overall timeline is unaffected and HMRC remains on schedule to close the tax credit system in 2025). | On track or complete |
| Build and test a system to allow ‘breathing space’ for customers with problem debt. | On track or complete |
Delivering coronavirus (COVID-19) support schemes
£60.7 billion paid in grants through the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, supporting 11.5 million jobs
7.2 million
payments to the self-employed
more than 80 tax policy changes and clarifications to support customers and the economy during the pandemic
600,000 VAT payments deferred by businesses
When the first lockdown was announced in March 2020, we built vital support schemes from scratch in under 7 weeks – including the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme and the Self-Employment Income Support Scheme – which helped to protect the economy and gave financial help to millions of individuals and businesses.
We also made multiple tax policy changes and clarifications to support customers and the economy, including increasing Working Tax Credit by £20 per week, deferring Income Tax payments for Self Assessment customers and VAT bills for UK businesses.
Our priority was to get the right level of support to individuals and businesses quickly. We put in robust measures to minimise and mitigate the potential for error and fraud in the COVID-19 support schemes from the outset, to the extent that this was feasible alongside getting support to people promptly. We also put measures in place to identify and address amounts overpaid as a result of claimant fraud and error.
Our commitments
In financial year 2020 to 2021, alongside all of our work on delivering coronavirus support schemes, we made 8 specific commitments in this area. The table below outlines the status of each one at the end of 2020 to 2021.
| Commitment description | Status |
|---|---|
| Successfully administer the government’s Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, which launched on 20 April 2020. | On track or complete |
| Successfully administer the government’s Self-Employment Income Support Scheme, which launched in May 2020. | On track or complete |
| Allow businesses affected by COVID-19 to defer VAT payments due between 20 March and 30 June 2020 and to defer certain Self Assessment payments due in July 2020. | On track or complete |
| Successfully implement the temporary reduced rate of VAT (5%) that businesses in the hospitality and tourism sectors pay on some of their supplies. This rate came into effect on Wednesday 15 July 2020. | On track or complete |
| Provide a Statutory Sick Pay Rebate, which fully covers the cost of two weeks of COVID-19-related Statutory Sick Pay per employee, for businesses with fewer than 250 employees. The rebate launched in April 2020. | On track or complete |
| Automatically increase payments for Working Tax Credit by up to £20 per week from 6 April 2020 until 5 April 2021. | On track or complete |
| Successfully administer the government’s Eat Out to Help Out Scheme, announced on 8 July 2020. | On track or complete |
| Successfully implement Stamp Duty Land Tax temporary rates, reducing the rates payable on purchases of residential property between 8 July 2020 to 31 March 2021. | On track or complete |
Supporting the UK’s international trade
£80 million in grants to the customs intermediary sector
6 new border facilities built
600 guidance updates for customers and stakeholders
490,000 views of our GOV.UK support pages
The EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement and the provisions of the Withdrawal Agreement and Northern Ireland Protocol came into force on 1 January 2021. Helping businesses prepare for and navigate the new rules, after the biggest border change for more than 40 years, was an urgent priority for us and across government.
We worked with other departments across government to ensure the UK transition was as smooth as possible. As well as publishing information and engaging with businesses to make sure they were prepared for the end of the transition period, we carried out a major programme of process and system changes, including delivering over 60 IT requirements.
We opened new border customs facilities and pop-up sites in key locations, designed a grant scheme to increase the capacity of the customs intermediary sector and introduced the Trader Support Service to help businesses required to operate under the Northern Ireland Protocol. We also introduced multiple temporary changes to minimise disruption to trade flow at the border and we have been focused on stabilising the new processes to make sure the UK has a fully secure and operational border.
Working with other government departments, we also introduced a new online declaration service for passengers; digitising the declaration and payment process, minimising disruption and making it easier for passengers to be compliant with the rules.
Our customs and international trade helpline answered more than 70,000 calls from the start of 2021 to the end of the financial year, with an average speed of answer of less than 5 seconds in both February and March 2021. We worked alongside HM Treasury to introduce postponed VAT accounting which allows UK VAT registered businesses to account for import VAT on their VAT return, providing significant cash flow benefits compared to the alternative of paying the import VAT when the goods are imported.
Our commitments
In financial year 2020 to 2021, alongside all our work on the UK’s international trade, we made 2 specific commitments in this area. The table below outlines the status of each one at the end of 2020 to 2021.
| Commitment description | Status |
|---|---|
| Implement HMRC’s role in the delivery of UK transition by: delivering the necessary policy, operational, system and infrastructure changes; supporting the government in negotiations with the EU on the Northern Ireland Protocol and Future Trade Agreement; ensuring we have the people in place to support operational systems and support customers; developing contingency plans | On track or complete |
| We will ensure that people coming into the country from the EU will only be able to access Child Benefit after 5 years, in the way non-EEA (European Economic Area) migrants currently do. We will no longer allow people to claim Child Benefit for children living overseas (changes are consistent with commitments made under the UK’s international agreements, including the UK-EU Withdrawal Agreement). | On track or complete |
Transforming how we work
55,000 approximate number of colleagues supported to work from home during the pandemic
6% increase in colleagues feeling included and fairly treated
127 legacy IT systems decommissioned
74% reduction in our greenhouse gas emissions
We supported our colleagues to work effectively during the pandemic by providing comprehensive practical, health and wellbeing support. We moved most of our workforce to remote working but on average each week, 3,500 colleagues continued to work in COVID-safe offices, where their role could not be done from home.
We also made important longer-term progress on making HMRC a great place to work. Our ground-breaking pay and contract reforms made our working arrangements simpler, fairer and more consistent and will help us deliver a better service for customers.
We made significant progress in making HMRC a more inclusive workplace by continuing Our Respect at Work programme, launched to implement recommendations made by Laura Whyte in her 2019 review of our workplace culture, and launching a new race equality action plan. Additionally, our Employee Engagement Index has increased by 8 percentage points to 57% as reported in the Civil Service People Survey 2020.
Many of our older legacy IT systems are in need of modernisation. We have refreshed our IT and data strategies to establish how, over time, we will move to a smaller number of better supported platforms. We have also opened more regional centres in Edinburgh, Cardiff, Leeds and Stratford as part of our locations programme, helping us become a more digital and highly skilled organisation, and we are proud to be meeting or exceeding the Greening Government Commitments.
Our commitments
In financial year 2020 to 2021, alongside all our activity to transform how we work, we made 7 specific commitments in this area. The table below outlines the status of each one at the end of 2020 to 2021.
| Commitment description | Status |
|---|---|
| Ensure our commitments and values are evident in every decision and interaction in HMRC, through the Respect at Work programme | On track or complete |
| Increase the percentage of colleagues each year who feel they have the skills required to do their job effectively, working towards the Civil Service benchmark (89% in 2019) | On track or complete |
| Continue to make consistent positive progress towards achieving the Civil Service Employee Engagement Index benchmark (63% in 2019) | On track or complete |
| Agree pay and contract reforms that deliver an improved pay offer and modernised contracts, through formal negotiations with our recognised trade unions | On track or complete |
| Support our people during the pandemic by ensuring an effective HR policy response | On track or complete |
| Continue to transform our estate into modern, adaptable workspaces serving every nation and region in the UK, delivering 12 out of 13 new regional centres over 5 years | On track or complete |
| Continue to support the Greening Government commitments in 2020 to 2021, working towards the targets set for us by government | On track or complete |
Supporting wider government aims
£218.4 million recovered in proceeds of crime
1,145 supervisory interventions to prevent money laundering
575 National Minimum Wage penalties issued
770,000 employers and workers given guidance and support on National Minimum Wage rights and obligations
Our vital role in the UK’s COVID-19 response and preparing for the end of the UK’s transition from the EU meant that we were working at the heart of the government’s priorities throughout 2020 to 2021 – supporting the wider economy as well as administering the tax and customs system.
We also continued work to support the government’s wider aims. This included administering tax reliefs designed to increase growth and productivity, introducing taxes that further the government’s green agenda such as the tax on plastic packaging, enforcing the National Minimum Wage and playing an active role in cross-government work to tackle economic crime.
Our commitments
In financial year 2020 to 2021, alongside all our work on the UK’s international trade, we made 2 specific commitments in this area. The table below outlines the status of each one at the end of 2020 to 2021.
| Commitment description | Status |
| Support the government in introducing a tax on plastic packaging manufactured in, or imported into, the UK from April 2022. Status update: Due to the disruption caused by Covid-19, we extended the consultation on the design of the Plastic Packaging Tax by 3 months to give stakeholders more time to submit their views. We adapted our delivery plans and key milestones accordingly and successfully delivered the primary legislation in Finance Act 2021. While we are broadly on track to implement the new tax, business readiness is our key concern. We are working collaboratively with industry experts to help channel communications and streamline the development of secondary legislation and guidance, which we will share with businesses in stages as they are developed to support their preparations. | Risk to delivery |
Managing risks to our delivery
HMRC’s Executive Committee manages 9 strategic risks to the delivery of our strategic objectives. We worked hard to deliver sensible mitigations for our strategic risks throughout the financial year. Our focus in particular has been on dealing with data and security risks, and whilst there is still more to do, we have focussed mitigations and investment on the risks associated with older legacy IT systems, cyber security and other external threats.
As we approached the end of the UK’s transition period with the EU, the key activity in minimising risk was planning to ensure the smooth operation of the UK border.
We have also focussed on our people-related risks during this challenging year, taking action to build a supportive, fair, kind and equal environment.
We have a number of risks related to delivering our core purpose and supporting our customers. We continue to work to build trust with our customers and stakeholders, with a particular focus this year on our powers and safeguards, and we continue to take important steps to improve the customer experience.
We plan and forecast to ensure we deliver on our targets within our budget and we have focussed on improving our change portfolio planning to ensure we deliver our key programmes.
Lastly, we continue to improve the way we exploit our data to further support revenue collection and customer service.
HMRC’s 9 strategic risks:
- capacity, capability and engagement of our people
- HMRC security
- Data protection
- delivering the change portfolio
- exploiting information
- external perception/loss of trust
- impact of EU negotiations on tax administration
- improving customer experience
- funding and affordability