Good luck closing tax loopholes, Rachel Reeves – the rich will always find a way

By investing £555m on hiring more tax collection officers and moving against offshore schemes, the shadow chancellor maintains she will succeed where others have failed. She will not, says Chris Blackhurst

Shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves says a crackdown on tax avoidance could raise £5bn a year by the end of the next parliament (PA)

As shadow chancellor, Gordon Brown liked to promise that once in government he would launch a tax crackdown. Labour would be better at collecting taxes, he said – and there were rich pickings to be had by tackling tax dodgers.

That was during the run-up to the 1997 national ballot and Labour’s landslide triumph. Now, in 2024, here we are again. For Brown, read Rachel Reeves. The current shadow chancellor has taken to the airwaves, claiming she will raise £5bn a year narrowing the “tax gap” – the difference between the amount of money HM Revenue and Customs is owed and the amount it actually receives.

Reeves is also planning to close “loopholes” in the government’s plans to move against non-doms, people who are not domiciled in the UK for tax purposes, which will raise a further £2.6bn.