AQW 8649/17-22

Mr Stewart Dickson
Alliance Party
East Antrim

Tabled Date: 13/10/2020
Answered On Date: 06/11/2020
Priority Written: No

Question:
To ask the Minister for the Economy to detail the number of requests sent by her Department to HMRC or the Treasury, seeking access to tax data in order to assist those excluded from business support schemes.

Answer:

The Department of Finance would normally be the lead department in any engagement with HM Treasury. That said, my Department has had many previous interactions with HMRC on accessing the data they hold, including liaison over many years in the case of the devolution of Corporation Tax, Trade Data associated with EU Exit and, more recently, my Department has had interactions with HMRC to help operationalise the Micro Business Hardship Scheme. However, we have been unable to gain permission to access taxpayer data, which is guarded zealously and for good reason.

I recognise that not all businesses and individuals have been able to avail of UK-wide support schemes. While my Department is currently working on schemes to assist these groups, I have previously raised with the Executive that there would be challenges in establishing a local scheme for those excluded as access to the national database would be required by HMRC.

It is also worth noting that many of those making representations about being excluded from business support schemes are the newly self-employed, a group that were, according to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, outside the SEISS Scheme because of a lack of tax data held by HMRC on those not yet within the self-assessment system.

To this end, HMRC has recently confirmed that it does not have any short term means to verify individuals who are newly self-employed.