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Companies and individuals that are careless or even illegal in their tax affairs need to watch out. New figures show that HMRC has paid out £1.4 million in rewards to whistleblowers of tax illegality.
A record number of reports were made to HMRC in the 2025-26 tax year, hitting 170,992.
The last Budget saw the government strengthen a reward scheme for tip-offs. Payouts only go to tips that lead HMRC to recover more than £1.5 million in tax. Informants now receive between 15% and 30% of the value of the extra tax collected.
Recent HMRC figures on the tax gap – the difference between the tax owed and the amount actually collected – showed that small businesses made up the largest share of uncollected tax, two-thirds of the £59.2 billion shortfall.
HMRC have also just released a two-minute YouTube video as a ‘general explainer’ on the scheme. It is aimed at employees, family members, friends or acquaintances of high-net-worth individuals or businesses engaged in suspected serious tax evasion or avoidance. It sets out what the scheme is, what rewards eligible informants could receive and how any information provided may help HMRC to tackle the tax gap and fund vital public services.
The video can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsmzQR-Uhqc
Should you be unsure of your tax position and need advice, please get in contact. We’re here to help.
The Chancellor, Rachel Reeves has announced an expansion of the British Business Bank’s (BBB) Growth Guarantee Scheme (GGS). This provides a 70% government guarantee on commercial loans to SMEs of up to £2 million, cutting credit risk.
The changes will enable the scheme to scale up with an additional £2 billion of Small to Medium-sized Enterprises (SME) lending per year by 2028/29. This will bring the total lending supported through the scheme to £3.35 billion per year, more than double the current £1.35 billion.
It will also increase the maximum term length of a loan from six to 10 years for loans of up to £1.1 million and increase the maximum size of businesses eligible for a loan under the scheme from £45 million in annual turnover to £54 million.
The British Business Bank estimates these changes will support an additional 12,000 businesses per year by 2028/29, a 150% increase on the 8,000 currently being supported, bringing the total to 20,000. Since its launch in 2022, the scheme has delivered over £3.7 billion of financing to UK SMEs, with £2.5 billion of this reaching businesses outside of London and the Southeast.
It is claimed that every £1 spent on the scheme is estimated to support around £10 of lending by banks.
A new Freedom of Information (FOI) request has discovered that health and safety violations cost British employers over £44 million per year. The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) revealed that serious breaches have resulted in an increasing number of prosecutions between 2023 and 2025.
The figures show that between 2021 and 2025, the average annual fines to businesses averaged £44.1 million a year, with 2025 showing a slight decline to £40.9 million. In contrast, the number of serious breaches resulting in prosecution charges increased over the last three years, rising from 428 in 2023 to 446 in 2024 and 496 in 2025.
These numbers are expected to increase in 2026. Prosecution charges are brought against companies, owners and directors when an investigation is in the public interest and reveals a serious breach of regulations.
The FOI request came from Breathe HR, experts in human resource management and compliance supporting Small to Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs). It warns that as costs continue to rise for small businesses, a health and safety violation could financially cripple a company.
Construction firms accounted for 38% of prosecution charges last year, the largest sector.
Phil Coxon, Managing Director at Breathe HR, said, “Reviewing health and safety policies and risks might not be the most glamorous task on employers’ to-do lists’, but our research shows it’s not something leaders can afford to overlook.”
His company recommends several general steps that businesses should take to remain compliant.
Other recommendations for specific risk can be found on the Breathe HR website. https://www.breathehr.com/en-gb/resources/health-and-safety-basics-a-checklist-for-smes
The latest figures from HMRC reveal that the Treasury had a substantial £59.2 billion shortfall from unpaid taxes for the tax year 2024-2025. The ‘Measuring tax gaps 2026 edition’ found that the tax gap, which measures the difference between the amount of tax expected to be paid and what was actually collected, stood at an estimated 6.4%, up from 5.3% for 2023-24.
HMRC collected £865.2 billion over the 2024 to 2025 tax year, representing 93.6 per cent of all tax due, but non-compliance by small businesses alone constituted 62% of the gap. This was primarily due to unpaid Corporation Tax, as the tax gap rose to 18.1%.
HMRC noted that the tax gap for Corporation Tax had been broadly stable until COVID. In 2019-2020, it rose to 15.6%, but this was partly due to improvements in data collection.
Summary of figures
Failure to take reasonable care, error and evasion are among the main behavioural reasons for the overall tax gap. Tax evasion accounted for 12% of last year’s tax gap, HMRC said.
To see the full details of HMRC’s report, go here https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/measuring-tax-gaps
If you need help with your tax calculations and returns, please contact us. We’d be happy to help!
Comcast’s Universal Ads has launched in the UK in partnership with Channel 4, ITV and Sky. It is a self-service platform that opens TV advertising up to Small to Medium-Sized (SMEs) businesses at a more affordable cost.
Based on social media advertising, an SME can plan, buy and measure a single campaign across the three broadcasters from one interface. It strips out the need for advertising agencies and the complexities of TV advertising, which has long been dominated by multinationals.
Comcast’s pitch is simple: select a budget, choose your audience, upload the creative and go live in minutes rather than weeks.
Rak Patel, Chief Commercial Officer at Channel 4, said, “Lowering the barriers to premium media can be a game changer for smaller brands… Greater collaboration across broadcasters can simplify TV buys for advertisers, attract new categories and brands into TV, and help ensure premium TV remains innovative and competitive alongside global social and digital platforms.”
The system has been available to US advertisers for more than a year and is aimed at companies that have found TV advertising out of reach.
For more information on the system, visit https://www.universalads.com/uk
For the first time, government departments have set individual targets for how much they will spend with small and medium-sized businesses (SME). In total, the government plans to spend £7.4 billion a year with SMEs by 2028.
The targets are part of the government’s Plan for Small Business and aim to help businesses and the economy grow.
To hold government departments accountable, they will be required to publish yearly progress updates. Departments that fall behind will need to show how they will improve.
Small Business Minister Blair McDougall said: “These new targets will ensure thousands of smaller businesses have greater opportunity to win lucrative government contracts and grow their businesses.”
