Under new powers which came into operation last month on 1 September aimed at targeting tax evasion, information on all credit and debit card payments to UK businesses is now available to HMRC for the first time. Similar legislation is in place in Ireland with the first information returns due to the Revenue Commissioners on 30 April last.

HMRC can now access information from the UK’s merchant acquirers – the companies that process card payment transactions – to find out the number and value of transactions completed by a specific trader. It is advised that no personal data identifying the card owners or card numbers will be obtained, but the data is intended to be used to ensure that traders have correctly accounted for all taxes due. HMRC intends to analyse the data using its risking system, Connect. This cross-references and compares the data with the information HMRC already holds.

The legislation allows HMRC to obtain data on card payments to all UK businesses for the previous four years. The first requests for the data were to be sent to merchant acquirers last month.