About HM Revenue & Customs
You probably know HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) as the people who collect tax, but there’s far more to us than that. We’ve moved beyond our traditional business of assessing and collecting taxes and providing valuation services.
We’re now responsible for National Insurance, making sure the National Minimum Wage is properly paid, paying tax credits and collecting student loans. Our aim is to administer the tax and customs systems fairly and efficiently. We know, for example, that most people and businesses want to do what is right – to pay what they owe and claim only what they are due.
We’re committed to making it as easy as possible for our taxpayers, claimants and other customers to get it right. We will also protect society further by dealing with anyone who intentionally avoids their responsibilities.
We have a turnover of around £450 billion in tax, duty and National Insurance contributions, an annual budget of over £4.5 billion and over 50 million individual and corporate customers. We’re a big and diverse organisation, employing around 80,000 people, many of them in contact centres, customer service and customs roles at ports and airports. Our goal is to continuously improve our customer service, helping our customers meet their obligations and enforcing compliance on those who deliberately avoid their responsibilities.
Like most other big organisations, we employ a lot of specialists like lawyers, accountants, economists, policy advisers and project managers. We’re renowned for our cutting edge diversity policies – and strongly believe in developing and caring for the people who work here, ensuring they have challenging and rewarding work to do.
Local Compliance
Local Compliance (LC) is responsible for operational compliance work across a range of business taxes and duties including Corporation Tax, Employer Compliance, PAYE, VAT, Excise, International Trade and other business taxes.
Approximately 14,500 people work in LC across the country. Together we contribute to the delivery of each of the Departmental strategic objectives which are themselves focused on improving the extent to which individuals and businesses pay the tax due and receive the credits and payments to which they are entitled, improve customers’ experiences of HMRC thereby improving the UK business environment and reducing the risk of elicit import and export of things that might harm the UK’s physical and social wellbeing.
From 1 May 2008, LC activity is based around 3 customer groups and one group consisting of the majority of our Cross Cutting Teams. Senior Tax Planning Specialists recruited into HMRC will work within the Large and Complex customer group. Nationwide, this group looks after around 14,000 businesses with the aim of increasing the “compliant customer” proportion of our population.
Large Business Service
The LBS is responsible for working with the UK’s very largest companies, employers and partnerships who, collectively, pay over half of the total business taxes that HMRC collects. We employ around 1,750 tax, accountancy, audit and there specialists who provide dedicated support to our customers and address the often extremely complex tax related risks that arise.
LBS customers are diverse, with complex tax and duty arrangements. Each customer has a single Customer Relationship Manager (CRM) who oversees all of HMRC’s involvement with them. Each CRM works in one of 16 trade sectors and is supported by teams of Tax Specialists who focus on Direct, Indirect or Employment taxes.
Working alongside these teams, the LBS Strategic Risk Unit (SRU) comprises Tax Avoidance, Transfer Pricing, International, Accountancy and other specialists. SRU teams also work closely with colleagues in HMRC’s policy and other Head Office functions.
Charities, Assets and Residence
Our Charities, Assets and Residence (CAR) unit is made up of several different business areas responsible for the design and, in the most part, operational delivery of a diverse range of products. We employ over 1750 people across teams that cover subjects including, amongst others, Inheritance Tax (IHT), Capital Gains Tax, Charities, Residence, Pensions and Trusts. Our specialists work in a wide variety of roles, including operations and compliance through to technical and policy.
Trade Sector Adviser
The Trade Sector Adviser Team provides an advisory and consultancy service to tax and other specialists within HMRC to increase our understanding of business sectors and better target interventions. The team works with senior managers in HMRC providing a variety of products tailored to specific needs. These can range from an overview of the current business environment in a sector to a detailed analysis of a specific business or an aspect of that business. Other type of work could include helping colleagues in HMRC or other government departments analyse the yield from a particular tax or duty or develop better targeted policy.
CT & VAT
HMRC’s CT & VAT group is responsible for optimising the design, owning the specification and providing advice across Corporation Tax Self Assessment (CTSA) and Quarterly Instalment Payments (QIPs) process, VAT product and process, domestic and international business taxes, Corporation Tax, Insurance Premium Tax and Petroleum Revenue Tax. We work alongside HMRC’s other business units to understand and resolve process and product issues, and to support the development of operational plans and compliance strategies. We work with HM Treasury and Ministers, as well as other parts of the organisation, to deliver new policy and deliver policy changes within the scope of the group.
