The Chancellor made it clear that aside from the June tax increases in VAT and Capital Gains Tax and the restriction of tax relief on pension contributions, by far the largest contribution to reaching ‘consolidation’ on the UK's deficit is sought to be achieved by the spending reductions announced in June and in the CSR.

Nevertheless, within both the Chancellor's speech and the virtual mountain of publications made available thereafter, there were peppered, a number of tax and one very relevant Northern Ireland item.

Whilst not directly mentioned in the Chancellor's statement, there came the confirmation that Northern Ireland can still expect the long anticipated White Paper on ‘rebalancing the economy’. And, as part of the question session after the Chancellor's statement was completed, the Chancellor confirmed we can expect this ‘later this year’.

Specific tax items in the CSR included confirmation that the permanent bank levy legislation would be published (and it was the next day – see http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/drafts/bank-levy.htm).

HMRC have also been instructed to work with the banks to ensure all banks have been signed up to the Code of Practice on Taxation by the end of November.

The specific settlement for HMRC also includes:

• £900 million of investment to address the tax gap and tackle tax avoidance and evasion (see below) – the Government projects that this will bring in an additional £7 billion per year in tax revenues by 2014/15
• £100 million targeted at ‘improving’ the operation of Pay As You Earn (PAYE) for both employers and individuals
• measures to deliver £8 billion of tax credit fraud and error savings by 2014/15
• overall resource savings of 15 per cent (including the additional investment) with efficiency savings of 25 per cent through enhanced use of new technology, rationalising the HMRC estate and maximising savings from IT contracts

The £900 million of investment to address the tax gap will include:

• a five-fold increase in criminal prosecutions to act as a deterrent to others;
• a new dedicated team of investigators to crack down on offshore evasion;
• more resources for the prevention of tobacco and alcohol fraud;
• dedicated tax experts to extend HMRC's coverage of large businesses, focused on providing resources to tackle high risk areas; and
• improvements to the scope of HMRC's in house debt collection in addition to placing up to £1 billion per year of tax debt to private sector debt collection agencies (this process commenced in July).

In order to focus resources on frontline tax collection, HMRC will invest in new technology to improve risk assessment capability, improve taxpayer information and streamline internal processes. The intention is also to maximise savings from IT and other procurement contracts and administration costs are to be reduced by a third with reductions in the size of corporate services and back office support functions.

HMRC will also modernise tax administration with the aim of improving and tailoring services for taxpayers. The Government plans that all businesses will be filing their tax returns online by 2012 with a target of at least 80 per cent of self assessments to be filed online by 2014/15.

None of these measures come as any great surprise and many were signposted in the June Budget and in the time since then. But the message is very clear – HMRC will be working smarter and the clampdown on evaders and avoiders of all types continues apace.

The full CSR publications can be accessed on the HM Treasury website at http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/spend_index.htm