About us

HMRC is the UK’s tax, payments and customs authority, and we have a vital purpose: we collect the money that pays for the UK’s public services, and help families and individuals with targeted financial support. We do this by being impartial and increasingly effective and efficient in our administration. We help the honest majority to get their tax right and make it hard for the dishonest minority to cheat the system.

We were established by Act of Parliament in 2005 as a new department replacing the Inland Revenue and Customs and Excise.

We are a non-ministerial Department established by the Commissioners for Revenue and Customs Act (CRCA) 2005, replacing the Inland Revenue and Customs and Excise. CRCA vested responsibility for the administration of the tax system in Commissioners appointed by the Queen. The Commissioners are drawn from the department’s top management.

We report to Parliament through our Treasury minister who oversees our spending.

The Treasury lead on strategic tax policy and policy development. HMRC leads on policy maintenance and implementation. This arrangement for policy making is known as the ‘policy partnership’.

We:

  • are responsible for safeguarding the flow of money to the Exchequer through our collection, compliance and enforcement activities
  • make sure that money is available to fund the UK’s public services
  • facilitate legitimate international trade, protect the UK’s fiscal, economic, social and physical security before and at the border, and collect UK trade statistics
  • administer Statutory Payments such as statutory sick pay and statutory maternity pay
  • help families and individuals with targeted financial support through payment of tax credits
  • administer Child Benefit
  • are a high volume business; almost every UK individual and business is a direct customer of HMRC
  • aim to administer the tax system in the most simple, customer focused and efficient way
  • administer the Government Banking Service

Responsibilities

We are responsible for:

  • Income Tax, Corporation Tax, Capital Gains Tax, Inheritance Tax, Insurance Premium Tax, Stamp, Land and Petroleum Revenue Taxes
  • environmental taxes
  • climate change and aggregates levy and landfill tax
  • Value Added Tax (VAT), including import VAT
  • customs duty
  • excise duties
  • trade statistics
  • National Insurance
  • tax credits
  • Child Benefit
  • enforcement of the National Minimum Wage
  • recovery of Student Loan repayments
  • anti-money laundering supervision

Priorities

We have 5 strategic objectives:

  • collect the right tax and pay out the right financial support

  • make it easy to get tax right and hard to bend or break the rules

  • maintain taxpayers’ consent through fair treatment and protect society from harm

  • make HMRC a great place to work

  • support wider government economic aims through a resilient, agile tax administration system

The HMRC Charter

We want to give you a service that is even-handed, accurate and based on mutual trust and respect. We also want to make it as easy as we can for you to get things right.

The HMRC Charter explains what you can expect from us and what we expect from you.

Corporate information

Access our information

Jobs and contracts

Read about the types of information we routinely publish in our Publication scheme. Find out about our commitment to Welsh language scheme. Our Personal information charter explains how we treat your personal information. Read our policy on Social media use.

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