Do you have any evidence to support this statement?

There has been a huge number of corporation tax anti-avoidance measures introduced in the UK (and indeed worldwide as part of the OECD BEPS Actions) which has made a real impact on base erosion and profit shifting in the corporate world – the most significant of which have been introduced in the last year or two. I believe these anti avoidance measures are the main reason why UK corporation tax receipts have risen so sharply despite the drop in headline corporation tax rates.

To name but a few:
– BEPS Action 2 anti-hybrid arrangements
– BEPS Action 4 interest restrictions
– Restriction on the utilisation of carry forward losses
– Other loss restrictions eg in corporate partnerships, sideways loss relief, donations, pre-entry conditions etc
– Various anti-avoidance on specific financial arrangements and changes to the loan relationship rules
– Targeted CFC anti-avoidance rules
– Diverted profits tax
– Published tax strategy – which had brought tax compliance and tax risk squarely into the boardroom. I have seen a genuine shift in the UK corporate boardroom on approach to tax risk. (this probably applies to Europe too although I feel the US is still lagging way behind)

From an avoidance perspective I believe a wide and shallow tax base is far better than narrow and high tax base as corporate decisions usually come down to a cost/benefit analysis.

From a quick bit of research on HMRC statistics show corporation tax receipts in 05/06 as £42,355m and y/e Feb 2018 (latest published) of £54,556m.

Or to put it in another way corporation tax receipts have increased by 28.8% from 2005 to 2017.

Statistics haven’t been this dodgy since someone wrote £350m on a red bus. What were you thinking Grace.