HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) is conducting a survey of users of the following national statistics bulletins:
The survey will run from 20 January 2012 to 19 April 2012.
To take part please fill out the short online survey by following the link below.
Indirect taxes consultation - user survey (Opens new window)
HMRC is conducting this survey to find out how this change would affect users of the bulletins listed above, and also to gauge how often these bulletins are currently used. This information will help HMRC form a decision on whether to go ahead with publishing these bulletins every three months.
The proposed change relates only to the publication cycle of the bulletins - although they would be published every three months, the bulletins will still contain monthly time series data, with commentary and graphical analysis provided on a quarterly basis.
HMRC propose to publish bulletins in such as way as to ensure data is released in calendar quarters, that is, January/February/March, April/May/June and so on. This means that the betting and gaming bulletin would be published in January, April, July and October in each year. For the remaining five bulletins, they would be published in February, May, August and November.
Cash receipts for each HMRC tax will continue to be published monthly on HMRC's website.
HM Revenue & Customs receipts (Opens new window).
Other relevant sources for tax statistics are the joint Office for National Statistics and HM Treasury publication Public Sector Finances which can be found by following the link below.
HM Treasury website (Opens new window).
HMRC held a consultation from 4 January 2010 to 5 April 2010 which asked users for their views on a number of issues relating to the indirect taxes bulletins. There was strong support from nearly all users surveyed for including commentary and graphs, as well as support for adding more historic time series data. Since then, historic data, graphs and commentary have been added to this bulletin.
Indirect taxes national statistics survey responses and analysis
Users were also consulted on their views on the bulletins being moved from monthly to quarterly publication. There was strong opposition to this change, although the consultation did not make it clear that the data would still be available as monthly time series data.
HMRC has balanced the requests of statistical users with the resources required to publish these statistics. As a result, HMRC is consulting users on whether they would encounter any problems moving to quarterly publication of this bulletin.
In deciding which bulletins to move to a monthly publication cycle, HMRC took into account:
1. The results from the previous consultation. There was strong opposition to moving to a quarterly publication cycle, particularly for tobacco duties, alcohol duties and hydrocarbon oil duties; these will all continue to be released monthly. Nearly all users preferred monthly publication but there were few specific concerns on other taxes.
2. Whether there is strong user demand for monthly publication. The bulletins for VAT, tobacco duties, alcohol duties and hydrocarbon oil duties have strong user demand for monthly publication, with on average 770 downloads each month in 2011. For each of the six bulletins HMRC proposes moving to quarterly publication, each bulletin has around 570 or fewer downloads a month (apart from Landfill Tax which in 2011 had around 1,000 downloads per month).
3. Whether the bulletin contains significant information that is not published elsewhere on a monthly basis. Quarterly publication of the six bulletins will not result in any delay in publishing cash receipts, which continue to be published before the bulletins in HMRC's tax receipts table. Quarterly publication will mean a delay in publishing: liabilities for five bulletins, tonnage for Aggregates Levy and Landfill Tax; passenger numbers for Air Passenger Duty; and stakes and receipts breakdowns for betting and gaming.
4. Whether the bulletin covers a significant amount of tax revenue. HMRC’s purpose is to make sure that the money is available to fund the UK's public services. Therefore the focus of our statistics and analysis is tax revenue. The six bulletins moving to quarterly publication have a combined coverage of less than 5 per cent of indirect taxes receipts in 2010-11 and 2 per cent of all taxes. The four bulletins HMRC proposes to continue publishing monthly have a combined coverage of 83 per cent of indirect taxes receipts and 31 per cent of all taxes. Moving to quarterly publication will allow the department’s resources to work on other higher value analysis for statistics users
As a result of the above consideration, HMRC is proposing to publish the following bulletins every three months: Insurance Premium Tax, Climate Change Levy, Aggregates Levy, Landfill Tax, Air Passenger Duty and betting and gaming.
The bulletins that will continue to be released monthly are VAT, tobacco duties, alcohol duties and hydrocarbon oils duties.
If you have comments or will be affected by the move to a quarterly publication cycle, please complete the user survey.
Indirect taxes consultation - user survey (Opens new window)
January 2012
