About the Anti-Avoidance Group

Chris Tailby, Director Anti-Avoidance Group

A VAT specialist and Barrister, Chris retired from PricewaterhouseCoopers in 2002 after 12 years as a partner. He joined HM Customs and Excise as Director, Tax Practice on 1 July 2002.

In December 2004, following the merger with the Inland Revenue, Chris was appointed Director of the Anti-avoidance Group (AAG) in HMRC. His role is to develop HMRC’s anti-avoidance strategy and take lead responsibility for the co-ordination of all anti avoidance activity across all taxes and NIC. In June 2003 he was voted Tax Personality of the Year.

In November 2005 he was given the VATRat award for 2005 for his work in changing the culture against VAT avoidance.

Who we are

HMRC’s Anti-Avoidance Group (AAG) is responsible for the development, maintenance and delivery of the department’s Anti Avoidance Strategy. AAG co-ordinates anti-avoidance activity across HMRC and is responsible for anti-avoidance policy. AAG is also responsible for the VAT Partial Exemption Regime by which in excess of £10billion per year of revenue is raised. The Group will deploy its resources where the risk is greatest, and provide direction for the effective use of resource within other areas of HMRC.

What we do

Working closely with HM Treasury (HMT) and HMRC colleagues, the AAG will:

  • provide advice and support to Ministers, HMT and HMRC colleagues on anti-avoidance policy issues;
  • develop, deliver and maintain an anti-avoidance strategy by leading and directing all parts of HMRC on anti-avoidance operational issues, ensuring the design process includes rigorous testing against further challenge;
  • lead on the investigation by operational colleagues of those avoidance cases adjudged to be the most serious;
  • risk assess disclosed avoidance schemes and co-ordinate responses including devising and delivering the operational strategy for handling enquiries into avoidance schemes.
  • co-ordinate and analyse intelligence about avoidance in order to have a deeper understanding of what drives avoidance behaviour and use the information to inform effective resource deployment within AAG, policy and operations;
  • seek to ensure that appropriate technical resource is available to support the challenge of other priority cases;
  • devise and agree, in consultation with other areas of HMRC, consistent standards in an end-to-end approach to anti-avoidance;
  • reduce the risk of cross-border tax avoidance by working with our international tax partners in the Joint International Tax Shelter Information Centre (JITSIC).
  • provide the statutory clearance procedures at Sections 215, 225, & 707 ICTA 1988, Sections 138, 139(5), 140B & 140D TCGA 1992 paragraph 88 Schedule 29 FA 2002 and Section 701 ITA 2007.
  • apply the provisions in Section 682-713 Income Tax Act 2007 (formerly Section 703-709 ICTA 1988) to counteract tax avoidance by transactions in securities;
  • maintain the effectiveness of VAT Partial Exemption (PE) rules to protect baseline yield and ensure equity of treatment between businesses;
  • provide technical resource and support for the most complex and revenue significant PE cases, and exercise PE powers to tackle poor compliance; and
  • explore options to improve the PE system, working in partnership with HMT and operational colleagues.