Written questions, answers and statements

VAT

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Question for HM Treasury

UIN 206160, tabled on 16 July 2014

Question

Nia Griffith
Labour
Llanelli
Commons

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment he has made of whether there have been any benefits to the internal work of HM Revenue and Customs of the release of data about VAT registration to private credit ratings agencies.

Answer

Mr David Gauke
Conservative
South West Hertfordshire
Commons

Answered on

21 July 2014

HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) published the research ‘Report on use of non-financial credit VAT registration data in trade credit scoring’ on 25 June 2014. This can be found at https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/sharing-and-publishing-data-for-public-benefit. The report demonstrated that a controlled release of non-financial VAT registration data would have significant benefits for business in securing additional trade credit. Provisions to enable this are now in the Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Bill currently before Parliament.

The research report also identified that there may be benefits for HMRC in such data sharing although, without further work, it was not possible to quantify these. HMRC will consider how to follow up this work.

Answered by

Treasury
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