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Written question asked by Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Labour), in the House of Lords. It was answered by Lord Sassoon (Conservative) on Thursday, 24 May 2012.

Taxation: Fraud

Question

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their assessment of the amount of duty lost to HM Revenue and Customs due to beer duty fraud, and how this estimate was reached, for each year from 1992 until the last year for which records are available.[HL98]

Answer

HMRC estimates losses in revenue associated with illicit sales of beer, spirits, tobacco products and oils. These are published in chapters 3, 4 and 5 of Measuring Tax Gaps 2011, available online here: http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/stats/measuring-tax-gaps.htm

Figures for tobacco products and oils are published for each year from 2000-01 to 2009-10, for spirits each year from 2001-02 to 2009-10 and for beer each year from 2002-03 to 2009-10. Estimates are not available for earlier years.

For beer, more recent and improved estimates were published in Improved Beer Tax Gap Estimate: Lower Bound (http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/stats/beer-tax-gap-feb2012.pdf).

The methodologies used for producing each of these tax gap estimates can be found in the accompanying methodological annex (http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/stats/mtg-annex2011.pdf).

Estimates of the illicit market for wine are not available.

Separate estimates of duty losses due to smuggling are not made as the estimates of the total illicit market cannot be broken down into their component parts.

Secondary information

Type
Written question
Reference
737 cc90-1WA; HL98
Session
2012-13
Subjects
Beer Fraud Excise duties
Contains statistics
Yes
Link
View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk