HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) will use a newly-developed ‘supercomputer’ to gather additional data about taxpayers and identify those who may not be correctly declaring their income, according to reports.
The idea is that the Revenue will be able to create a realistic ‘income profile’ for taxpayers based not only on information declared in tax returns, but on data compiled from a range of corporate, internet and Government sources.
The news comes shortly after HMRC issued warning letters to as many as 10,000 individuals in December whom it suspected had failed to correctly declare all of the savings interest they had received during the 2014/15 financial year.
In recent weeks, the Revenue has also said that those who enjoy a regular income from online retail and holiday lettings websites such as eBay and AirBnB must declare such earnings in their self-assessment tax returns prior to 31 January 2016.
Reports suggest that the Connect ‘supercomputer’ has taken the Revenue several years – and upwards of £100million – to build.
Anonymised Visa and MasterCard payments, DVLA records, social media and web browsing records as well as a truer picture of employee earnings will all fall vaguely into the scope of the information Connect will be able to access once it takes effect, according to reports.
