By cracking down on tax avoiders and closing non-dom loopholes, Rachel Reeves will help revive UK public services
Margaret Hodge is the Labour MP for Barking
This week the shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves, announced that Labour would act to tackle tax dodging. HMRC claims £36bn was lost to the exchequer last year simply because people do not pay their tax. Shockingly, that figure is £5bn higher than that lost in the previous year. It represents a third of total government spending on education. It’s a scandal that we must attack.
We also know that £36bn is a very conservative estimate of the gap between what the exchequer does collect and what is due – what is known as the tax gap. For instance, many wealthy individuals hide their assets in secret trusts they set up overseas in British tax havens – and they pay no tax on that hidden wealth.
Margaret Hodge has been the Labour MP for Barking since 1994
