Further investment in HMRC’s debt management capabilities and a range of measures to close the tax gap featured as part of the Autumn Budget’s announcements. The Budget also announced some minor reforms to simplify reporting requirements and announced that further reforms to “streamline processes and improve the taxpayer experience” will be announced by HMRC at an event in Spring 2026. These reforms aim to build on HMRC’s Transformation Roadmap. The news also broke that as part of HMRC’s plans to achieve 90 percent digital interactions by 2029/30, from March 2026 HMRC will stop sending outbound letters which will instead be replaced by digital notifications. More informaticaon is available in the policy paper ‘Modernising digital outbound communications.’ Anyone who still wishes to receive paper communications will need to opt-out of digital communications in order to do so.
HMRC debt management
£64 million is to be invested over the next five years in HMRC’s existing partnerships with private sector debt collection agencies to collect more tax debt, with £89 million to be invested over the next five years to fund additional staff to increase HMRC’s capacity to collect more tax debt. An updated tax debt strategy was also published at the Budget which outlines HMRC’s approach to reducing tax debt as a percentage of receipts, and to improving debt management and taxpayer support.
Construction Industry Scheme (CIS)
HMRC’s powers to tackle fraud within the CIS are to be strengthened following the announcement that regulations for technical consultation will be published which aim to simplify and improve the administration of the scheme. The changes will take effect from 6 April 2026 and are being legislated for in Finance Bill 2025/26.
Rewards for informants of high-value tax fraud
The rewards paid to informants who provide HMRC with high-value information increased with immediate effect from Budget Day. For cases where tax over £1.5 million is recovered, HMRC will now pay rewards up to 30 percent of the additional tax collected that would otherwise have gone unpaid.
Promoters of marketed tax avoidance
New powers to close in on promoters of marketed tax avoidance are being legislated for in Finance Bill 2025/26. A consultation on further measures to tackle promoters is also to be launched in early 2026.
Enhancing HMRC’s powers and sanctions against tax adviser facilitated non-compliance
Earlier this year the Government consulted on the introduction of enhanced powers and sanctions to tackle tax advisers who facilitate non-compliance. Chartered Accountants Ireland responded to this technical consultation in September. The draft legislation for these powers is included in Finance Bill 2025/26 and will take effect from 1 April 2026.
Non-compliance on the high street
A new dedicated small business evasion and enforcement team is to be established to tackle non-compliance on the high street. The team will also deploy 350 HMRC criminal investigators to carry out more targeted criminal interventions to take on the most serious fraud and evasion by small businesses.
Electronic sales suppression
A call for evidence will be published in early 2026 which will set out the software standards for the Electronic and Mobile Point of Sale Sector that will also explore how best to embed standards across the latest products and innovations.
Non-derecognition liabilities
The government introduced a new anti-avoidance provision relating to certain arrangements where there is a non-derecognition liability from 26 November 2025 which is being legislated for in Finance Bill 2025/26.
Recklessness offence for direct tax
A consultation will launch in early 2026 on the introduction of a new ‘recklessness’ criminal offence for fraudulently evading direct taxes in order to align this with existing indirect tax offences.
Hidden economy: expanding tax conditionality to new sectors
The Government published a summary of responses to the ‘Tackling the hidden economy by expanding tax conditionality to new sectors’ consultation at the Budget and at the same time confirmed plans to extend tax conditionality to the waste and animal welfare sectors and additional transport licences. Draft legislation will be published for technical consultation in 2026.
Publication of deliberate defaulters
The framework for how HMRC publishes the details of deliberate defaulters is to be reformed in order to ‘bring forward changes next year.’
Making better use of third-party data
The Government will acquire third-party data more frequently for interest income and card sales from April 2028. This is being legislated for in Finance Bill 2025/26.
Cryptoasset Reporting Framework
UK reporting Cryptoasset Service Providers will be required to report on their UK tax resident customers under the Cryptoasset Reporting Framework. Information for first reports to HMRC will be collected from 1 January 2026 and reported to HMRC in 2027.
Enhancing tax transparency on real estate
The UK is participating in a new international agreement underpinned by the OECD which will tackle tax evasion by providing for the automatic exchange of readily available information on real estate.
Business systems integration
To enable the automatic transfer of sales and purchase data into businesses’ accounting software, a Call for Evidence will be published in early 2026 to develop options to increase the uptake of business systems integration.
Uncertain tax treatments
A consultation will be launched in early 2026 on proposals to enhance the existing notification regime for uncertain tax treatments.
Offshore anti-avoidance
The Government set out its commitment ‘to ambitious reform and substantial simplification of the Personal Tax Offshore Anti-Avoidance Legislation.’ As a result, next steps for the Personal Tax Offshore Anti-Avoidance Call for Evidence were published.
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