Written question asked by Vincent Cable (Liberal Democrat) on Friday, 27 October 2006, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Tuesday, 31 October 2006. It was answered by Baroness Primarolo (Labour) on Tuesday, 7 November 2006 on behalf of the Treasury.

VAT Fraud

Question: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what the value was of VAT missing trader intra-community fraud in each year since 1997; and if he will make a statement.

Answer: Annual estimates of the level of MTIC fraud from 2000-01 to 2004-05 were published alongside PBR 2005 in ““Measuring Indirect Tax Losses—2005””, which is available from the House of Commons Library or from the following website: www.hmrc.gov.uk/pbr2005/mitl2005.pdf.The first estimates of attempted MTIC fraud were made for 1999-2000, and can be found in ““Measuring and Tackling Indirect Tax Losses—2004””, which is also available from the House of Commons Library.The estimate for 2005-06 will be published at PBR 2006.

Secondary information