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Column 161
Written Answers to Questions
Wednesday 27 April 1994
TREASURY
Inland Revenue Unit Costs
Mr. Mandelson : To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will give his best estimate of the Inland Revenue's main unit costs for dealing with the tax affairs of (a) employees on PAYE liable at the basic rate and the higher rate, (b) the self-employed and (c) occupational pensioners.
Mr. Dorrell : Information in the precise form requested is not available. The Inland Revenue's management plan, which will be published shortly, will give the unit costs for all schedule E taxpayer records, including PAYE taxpayer and occupational pensioners ; all schedule D records, including the self-employed.
Company Cars
Mr. Mandelson : To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer (1) when he expects that the Inland Revenue will have issued tax codes incorporating the new company car benefit charges for 1994-95 to the majority of company car users ;
(2) what proportion of tax codings issued to taxpayers by the Inland Revenue for the tax year 1994-95 have included the benefit charge for use of a company car in 1994-95 as announced in the Budget in November 1993.
Mr. Dorrell : By now, all employees and employers should have received 1994-95 PAYE codes based on the most up to date information about car benefits and other matters held by the Revenue.
Capital Gains Tax
Mr. Mandelson : To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will give (a) the number of cases and (b) the average amount of tax involved where capital gains tax was remitted because the taxpayer had left the country for each year since 1984.
Mr. Dorrell : The number of cases and the average amount of tax involved where capital gains tax was remitted because the taxpayer has left the country for each year since 1984 is as follows :
Year |Number |Average amount in £ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1984 |207 |8,662 1985 |194 |7,431 1986 |177 |27,381 1987 |177 |15,506 1988 |238 |8,737 1989 |204 |10,048 1990 |218 |8,444 1991 |345 |13,401 1992 |448 |14,932
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Figures for 1993 are not sufficiently complete to allow the necessary comparison to be made and consequently the information is not available in the form requested.Personal Equity Plans
Mr. Mandelson : To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will give the cost of tax relief on income and capital gains from shareholdings held in PEPs for the year 1996-97, assuming that the uptake of PEPs continues at its present rate and that there is no change in income or capital gains tax legislation.
Mr. Dorrell : This would depend on rates of return from PEP investments in 1996-97.
Tax Avoidance
Mr. Redmond : To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what additional proposals he has to reduce tax avoidance.
Mr. Dorrell : The 1994 Finance Bill contains a number of important new anti-avoidance measures which are expected to yield almost £2 billion over the next three years. The Government will be considering whether further measures will be announced in the next Budget.
Payment of Accounts
Mr. Redmond : To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer when he intends taking action to make it a criminal offence for companies deliberately to delay payment of accounts.
Mr. Portillo : The Government's consultation exercise on late payment ended on 31 March 1994. We are currently considering the responses and the Government will announce their decision in due course.
VAT
Mr. Austin Mitchell : To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what assessment he has made of the contribution to the change in level of imports from Europe in the first half of 1993 of evasion of value added tax following the abolition of the request for imports declared at customs.
Sir John Cope : This change provided no new opportunities for VAT evasion, so the question of assessing the amount does not arise.
Mr. Spellar : To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what was the value of VAT repayment cheques stolen in each of the last five years.
Sir John Cope : The value of VAT payable orders which have been fraudulently encashed in each of the last five years is as follows :