HMRC received a record 164,670 anonymous fraud tip-offs in 2024–25, up almost 9% over the previous tax year. Price Bailey reports, however, that payments to informants over the same period fell by 13%, suggesting that HMRC are being ‘inundated with more low-value or unverifiable tip-offs, whilst getting even fewer valuable tip-offs that would merit discretionary payments’. Proposals outlined at Autumn Budget 2024 for a new regime to reward informants ‘to encourage reporting of high value tax fraud and avoidance’ could exacerbate the problem, with HMRC having to deal with a growing number of speculative or even malicious claims, according to the firm.
The Exchequer Secretary had announced on 11 March 2025 that a new reward scheme for informants was to be launched later in 2025, with payments based on a proportion of tax recovered, taking inspiration from US and Canadian whistleblower schemes.
Andrew Park, Tax Investigations Partner at Price Bailey, commented: ‘If HMRC wants informants to deliver high-value intelligence, it must rethink how it rewards risk and insight. A transparent, percentage-based system – like the one used by the IRS – would offer real incentives for exposing major fraud. The new whistleblowing regime could be a game-changer, but it must balance the right incentives with selectivity to avoid flooding the system with more noise.’
HMRC received a record 164,670 anonymous fraud tip-offs in 2024–25, up almost 9% over the previous tax year. Price Bailey reports, however, that payments to informants over the same period fell by 13%, suggesting that HMRC are being ‘inundated with more low-value or unverifiable tip-offs, whilst getting even fewer valuable tip-offs that would merit discretionary payments’. Proposals outlined at Autumn Budget 2024 for a new regime to reward informants ‘to encourage reporting of high value tax fraud and avoidance’ could exacerbate the problem, with HMRC having to deal with a growing number of speculative or even malicious claims, according to the firm.
The Exchequer Secretary had announced on 11 March 2025 that a new reward scheme for informants was to be launched later in 2025, with payments based on a proportion of tax recovered, taking inspiration from US and Canadian whistleblower schemes.
Andrew Park, Tax Investigations Partner at Price Bailey, commented: ‘If HMRC wants informants to deliver high-value intelligence, it must rethink how it rewards risk and insight. A transparent, percentage-based system – like the one used by the IRS – would offer real incentives for exposing major fraud. The new whistleblowing regime could be a game-changer, but it must balance the right incentives with selectivity to avoid flooding the system with more noise.’
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