The Welsh Revenue Authority (WRA) has today (20 October) published its Annual Report and Accounts 2019 to 2020, reporting £300 million tax raised during the last financial year. The revenue will directly fund public services across Wales.
The WRA also continued to use its partnership approach to tax – helping people to pay the right tax at the right time – and combined it with an innovative process called ‘managing tax risk’. The tax authority has protected between an estimated £1.2 million and £1.6 million over the next 3 years using this approach.
Managing tax risk involves using collective knowledge to identify areas where common errors may arise and actively taking steps to reduce or prevent similar errors from occurring in future. The WRA adopted this approach with early success, by carrying out a range of activities; from education through to improving guidance and making digital improvements based on user feedback.
Established by the Welsh Government, the WRA started collecting and managing revenue from two devolved Welsh taxes, Land Transaction Tax and Landfill Tax, in April 2018. This is the first time the national revenue raising body is reporting on delivery against its Corporate Plan 2019 to 2022, following approval by the Minister for Finance and Trefnydd in May 2019.
Kathryn Bishop, Chair of the WRA, said:
We’re still a young organisation, but our first year delivering our first, full Corporate Plan has demonstrated how we’re maturing into our role and supporting the delivery of a fair tax system in Wales.
We’re pleased to report positive results overall, despite challenges such as coronavirus (COVID-19), which tested our resilience, as it is doing for many others across Wales. We’d like to thank all those who have continued to support us and, importantly, our people, for their commitment to service delivery which raises vital revenue for Wales.
Dyfed Alsop, Chief Executive of the WRA, said:
From day one, we’ve taken a partnership approach to tax, helping people to pay the correct tax at the right time. This resulted in us raising £300 million in tax to fund Welsh public services during the year.
We also introduced our own way of managing tax risk. We use this innovative approach to identify errors in tax returns and find ways to reduce or prevent the risk of further cases from happening again in future.
We have more to do, but we’re starting to see evidence that our way of delivering public services, which involves working together to manage tax, is proving effective.
For further information, see the Welsh Revenue Authority: Annual Report and Accounts 2019 to 2020.