To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, pursuant to the Answer of 22 March 2023 to Question 165453 on Taxation: Fines, how many penalties issued by HM Revenue and Customs which are recorded on the National Penalty Processing System for Inaccuracies within returns or documents amounted to £10,000 to £99,999 in each of the last five years.
Answered on
25 April 2023
The National Penalty Processing System (NPPS) is used by HMRC to record certain types of information, in particular penalties for:
- Inaccuracies within returns and documents
- Failure to Notify
- Deliberate Withholding of Information
NPPS is a standalone system for these purposes only. It is not used to record all penalties charged by HMRC across all of its compliance or wider activities.
We have interpreted your request as relating to the penalties charged for Inaccuracies within returns and documents only. The total penalties recorded on NPPS for inaccuracies within returns and document per penalty case in each of the relevant years are:
2017/18 | 2018/19 | 2019/20 | 2020/21 | 2021/22 | |
Total | 57,494 | 38,820 | 24,244 | 18,905 | 31,902 |
As stated above, the NPPS does not record all penalties charged by HMRC, and these figures should not be taken to represent a complete picture of HMRC compliance activity. Every year, HMRC collect and protect billions of pounds of tax revenue that would otherwise have been lost to the Exchequer through error, fraud, or other forms of non-compliance.