Written Statement: Welsh Revenue Authority’s Corporate Plan

The Welsh Revenue Authority (WRA) has now been successfully collecting and managing land transaction tax and landfill disposals tax, which replaced stamp duty land tax and landfill tax respectively, for over 12 months.

These taxes are a clear example of how fiscal devolution is enabling the Welsh Government to develop a Welsh approach to taxation which is supporting the provision of the high quality public services in Wales that we all want to see, including in our schools, our NHS and social care. It is estimated that land transaction tax and landfill disposals tax will raise more than £1bn in the first four years. The WRA will publish its first annual statistics for LDT on 16 May, and our final detailed LTT statistics on 27 June.

I wrote to the Chair of the WRA in April to set out my expectations for the operation of the WRA over the period 2019-20 to 2021-22.  These are:

Ongoing development of the WRA – to build on the WRA’s achievements and to look ahead over the longer term.  This includes supporting the development of a more effective and coordinated approach across the existing Welsh taxes and across the wider tax landscape as the Welsh Government has committed to in the Tax Policy Work Plan 2019 published on the 27 February;

Achieving outcomes - to develop a suite of operational performance measures to identify how effectively the tax system in Wales is operating; and

Unauthorised Disposals – that WRA should target resources in relation to the landfill disposals tax resources on cases which address environmental impacts and place legitimate landfill businesses at a disadvantage.

I am pleased that today marks the publication of the WRA’s first three-year corporate plan.

This sets out the organisation’s purpose to:

• Design and deliver Welsh national revenue services  
• Lead the better use of Welsh taxpayer data for Wales

The plan describes four key objectives the WRA will focus on over the next 3 years. These focus on:

• Making it easier to pay the right amount of tax
• Being fair and consistent in the way tax is collected and managed
• Being more efficient and delivering in a way that is sustainable and value for money; and
• Developing individual and collective capability  

In addition, the plan includes a further two new objectives which focus on:  

• Making the most of welsh taxpayer data assets for the benefit of Wales; and
• Using the WRA’s experience and expertise to support the design of Welsh revenue services

The WRA’s Corporate Plan is available.

The WRA will publish regular statistics on its website.