How should the government make the tax system fairer? Make tax more accountable.

As the general election gets underway, Tax Justice UK has launched its manifesto for a fairer tax system. One of the policies they urge the new Prime Minister to adopt is to make tax more accountable. Specifically, they call for significantly more targeted audits to recoup some of the billions of pounds of tax that go uncollected by the government each year.

This policy advice draws directly on the research of CAGE Impact Director, Arun Advani, who found that targeted audits bring in £10,000 to £15,000 on average- four to six times what they cost. An additional auditor doing targeted audits would raise enough to pay their own salary and the salary of at least four nurses.

Find out more about the research

Arun Advani, Recovering the missing billions: How auditing can improve tax collection, Advantage Magazine, Issue 8, 2019

A.Advani, W. Elming and J. Shaw, The Dynamic Effects of Tax Audits, CAGE working paper no. 414 (2017)

Arun Advani, Who does and doesn't pay taxes, IFS Briefing Note, BN218