Freedom of Information Team
S1715
6 Floor
Mr Trew Ray
Central Mail Unit
Newcastle Upon Tyne
By email:
NE98 1ZZ
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx.xxx
Email
xxx.xxxxxxx@xxxx.xxx.xx
Web
www.gov.uk
Date: 3 March 2021
Our ref:
FOI2021/00885
Dear Mr Ray
Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA)
Thank you for your request, which was received on 3 February, for the following information:
“Not mentioning specific cases but just numbers associated to each question as known by
HMRC to this date.
The following relates to disguised employees / disguised remuneration / tax avoidance
sphere.
The following questions cover the period of 2000 to present.
1. How many Umbrella Companies have been reported to HMRC?
2. How many investigations have been carried out by HMRC into Umbrella Companies?
3. Has HMRC any statistics or carried out any reviews into how much tax avoidance "relates
to / is contributed by" Umbrella Companies?
4. Is there a recognised regulatory body that HMRC approves of for use of Umbrella
Companies?”
We have interpreted your request as seeking information about disguised remuneration tax
avoidance schemes. We have numbered your questions for ease of reference.
We can confirm we hold some of the information you seek. However, providing it would
exceed the FOIA cost limit, which for central government equates to one person spending
3½ working days locating and extracting all of the information requested. We have therefore
refused your request und
er section 12(1) of the FOIA.
For question 1, we have interpreted this as asking about the number of cases submitted to
us through the Fraud Hotline and the online fraud reporting form, the routes through which
we receive reports of potential avoidance activity. We use the information we receive to
create reports that are passed to relevant teams for appropriate action. We do not
categorise these reports in a way that allows us to identify those relating to umbrella
companies. The only way to determine this would be to review each one to see if any of the
narrative makes reference to an umbrella company. We receive thousands of referrals each
year so analysing this information would far exceed the FOIA cost limit.
Information is available in large print, audio and Braille formats.
Text Relay service prefix number – 18001
OFFICIAL
Normally we would explore with you how you might be able to refine your request so that it
did not exceed the FOIA cost limit. However, in this case, we cannot see any scope for
doing this, as a narrowed time period would still not allow us to extract the data within the
appropriate limit.
Further, for question 2, investigations involving umbrella companies could be carried out by
a range of teams across the department. Our compliance data does not routinely contain the
term ‘umbrella company’ as an identifier. For this reason, manual searches of different case
management systems would be required to establish the information requested. This task
would also exceed the FOIA cost limit.
For question 3, we do not hold the information requested. We have not estimated the total
level of tax avoidance involving umbrella companies. And for question 4, we do not provide
any such approvals.
If you are not satisfied with this reply you may request a review within two months by
emailing
xxx.xxxxxx@xxxx.xxx.xx, or by writing to the address at the top right-hand side of
this letter.
If you are not content with the outcome of an internal review you can
complain to the
Information Commissioner’s Office. Yours sincerely,
HM Revenue and Customs
OFFICIAL
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