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- St Albans, Guildford and other stockbroker belt towns dominate Top Ten
Windsor leads the UK for the highest concentration of people admitting tax avoidance, our research shows.
In Windsor there were 23* disclosures to HMRC of unpaid tax per 100,000 population last year, the highest number of disclosures per 100,000 population in all 279 areas of the country. The UK average is seven disclosures per 100,000 people.
Affluent towns in the Home Counties, which make up the area known as the ‘stockbroker belt’, dominate the Top 20 areas with the most tax disclosures. St Albans, with 20 disclosures per 100k population, is second, followed by Guildford (17) third and Tunbridge Wells (15) in seventh – see table below.
Individuals have become increasingly likely to admit tax avoidance in recent years in order to escape the harsh penalties regime put in place by HMRC. It adds that wealthier individuals are more likely to make a disclosure to HMRC as they pay a higher rate of tax, which creates a greater financial incentive to avoid paying.
Greater awareness of the potential penalties for not paying the correct amount of tax amongst self-employed contractors may have also led to more people coming forward. Large numbers of self-employed contractors have been actively targeted by HMRC in recent years for using tax avoidance schemes.
HMRC has targeted contractors working in the Oil & Gas sector in Aberdeen, which is ranked fifth on the list, and IT contractors in Reading, which ranked eighth.
Other prosperous cities with high concentrations of high earners, such as Oxford, Cambridge and Exeter also feature in the list of Top 20 locations with most unpaid tax admissions.
Sean Glancy, VAT partner at our London office, says: “The stockbroker belt is littered with tax avoidance hotspots.”
“The Home Counties is home to many high net worth individuals and well-paid city commuters. These are the groups most likely to have the highest income tax bills – leading to greater incentives to find ways to reduce payments.”
“For those with unpaid tax bills, coming forward and making a disclosure to HMRC is the usually the best route forward. HMRC is often more lenient in terms of the fines handed out in cases where a disclosure has been made.”
Top 20 UK areas with most tax disclosures per 100k population last year
