According to the Daily Mail, Osborne has written to HMRC chief executive Lin Homer, setting the former county councillor a target of raising £17bn this year from “catching out” tax cheats.
Osborne is also reported to have said in his letter that HMRC has been “highly successful” in increasing tax revenues, with £13.9bn raised by the government body in the last financial year alone.
However, he ordered HMRC to raise a further £3.1bn from tax evaders and improve dealings with the “complex tax affairs of the largest businesses” and said there should be further investment in “tackling tax avoidance, evasion and criminal attack”.
The calls come days after it was revealed by the Treasury that almost one in ten people in the UK earning more than £10m per year is paying less than the 20% basic rate of income tax.
