Official Statistics

Quality report: HM Revenue and Customs receipts

Updated 21 June 2022

1. Introduction

This methodology and quality report relates to the National Statistic (NS) publication, HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) Receipts and National Insurance Contributions (NICs) for the UK and the purpose is to provide users with information about the quality of the outputs as set out by the Code of Practice for Official Statistics.

This is a NS publication produced to professional standards set out in the Code of Practice for Official Statistics and is free from any political interference.

This publication is released monthly and provides an overview of all tax, duties, NICs, fines and penalties, and expenditure that HMRC are responsible for collecting and administering.

Receipts are on a cash basis which represents when HMRC receives a payment for a taxable event. The data is published on both an annual and monthly basis and covers the whole of the UK unless stated otherwise.

Published annual data is available from the tax years 1999 to 2000, and monthly data is available from April 2008.

2. Relevance

This section covers the degree to which the statistical product meets user needs in both coverage and content.

HMRC ran a survey of this publication and the results showed that this publication is regularly used with nearly 20% of customers using the statistics more than once a month.

The information is largely used for media commentary, and policy development and research, with interest across the majority of taxes.

Following a recent user consultation, the publication has been changed to improve the presentation and provide further clarity by dividing the publication as follows:

• an annual bulletin with analysis on annual revenue and revenue growth as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product over the last twenty years. This will be updated each year after the HMRC Annual Report and Accounts publication on GOV.UK
• a monthly publication with commentary on monthly receipts over the last 5 years. This publication will continue to be released at 0700 on the 15th working day (or on the 16th working day if the 15th falls on a Monday)
• a full dataset of monthly and annual tax receipts, national insurance contributions and expenditure administered by HMRC are available on the HMRC statistics home page on GOV.UK

3. Accuracy and Reliability

This section covers the methodology, and the proximity between an estimate and the unknown true value.

HMRC accounting systems are the source for the monthly cash-based Trust Statement (TS), which records when taxes and duties are received at HMRC and forms the basis of these statistics and so is considered accurate and reliable.

The monthly receipts data remains as provisional until the annual TS is published.

The annual TS is included within the published HMRC Annual Report and Accounts and is on an accrual basis and so represents when a taxable event occurred (rather than when the tax is paid). These accounts are in accordance to the standards specified by the National Audit Office.

Following the TS publication, our monthly statistics are reviewed, and minor adjustments made to bring them in line with the annual cash-based accounts.

Differences between the two publications may still exist for legitimate reasons as the TS may include adjustments to taxes and duties in the current year but which relate to previous years (revisions are not made to historic TS accounts).

The monthly receipts data also form the basis of the Public Sector Finances Release (PSF) which is published jointly by HM Treasury (HMT) and the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

The data in the PSF release is on a National Accounts Basis (NABs) and to ensure that receipts are in line with the definitions of the European System of Accounts 2010, adjustments in this publication are made to the following taxes:

• NICs - adjustments are made to include estimates for statutory maternity/paternity pay recoveries as well as receipts administered by the NICs Office.
• Corporation tax - adjustments are made to include estimates for company tax credits, and due to the lag in return data becoming available, receipts are liable to revision. The latest year for which we have complete data is the tax year 2014 to 2015.

In the PSF release the cash data are time-adjusted to represent when the taxable event occurred and is consistent with the National Accounts statistical framework. The table PSA6D contains NABs data and table PSA7D contains data on a cash basis (representing when they are received at HMRC).

Please note that the cash data in PSA7D for Income Tax also includes Capital Gains Tax, and the Corporation Tax figure also includes Bank Surcharge and Diverted Profits Tax.

For further information on the Public Sector Finance release, please contact fraser.munro@ons.gov.uk.

4. Timeliness and Punctuality

This section on timeliness refers to the time gap between publication and the reference period. Punctuality refers to the gap between planned and actual publication dates.

We are committed to continuously improving the statistics we publish.

Our quality assurance processes were last reviewed in January 2021 to further improve safeguards and to minimise the risk of error by including systematic automated checks, the use of a quality assurance review checklist, and a sign off process in the production of these statistics. These measures enhance the level of assurance and provide a clear audit trail.

As part of quality assurance process to highlight any revisions since the previous month’s publication, checks are made against the data reported to HMT and the ONS. Further to this, each section is scrutinised by analytical staff working on each tax or tax credits area. The publication is also peer reviewed by different team members and overseen by the team’s senior statistician.

To allow sufficient time for data processing, analysis and to complete the quality assurance checks of these statistics, they are published monthly at 0700 on the 15th working day after the data starts to become available on HMRC accounting systems and so are published in a timely manner. This publication is published at 7:00am on the same day of the month as the Public Sector Finances (PSF) statistics, published by ONS. This is to improve the orderliness of release across government and enable users to gain a full insight of related statistics.

In line with the NS Code of Practice, these statistics are pre-announced on GOV.UK on the statistics release calendar.

HMRC also publishes an annual publication plan on the announcements page on GOV.UK. As part of the Code of Practice for Official Statistics, any changes to the schedule will be stated and detailed on this page.

In August 2020, HMRC published an announcement regarding a delay of 3 days to the original publication date of 22 September in collaboration with the ONS to incorporate data changes and allowing extra time for additional quality assurance.

5. Accessibility and Clarity

This section on accessibility, is the ease with which users are able to access the data, also reflecting the format in which the data are available and the availability of supporting information. Clarity refers to the quality and sufficiency of the metadata, illustrations and accompanying advice.

These statistics can be found in the tax receipts and taxpayers section on the HMRC statistics page on GOV.UK. There is a monthly and an annual release, both of which are available in in line with accessibility requirements.

The monthly release consists of two documents, of which one is a monthly bulletin published in accessible HTML format and includes an overview of receipts and expenditure administered by HMRC, as well as analysis on receipts for some of the larger taxes and links to the relevant statistics section on GOV.UK to provide the user with more detailed information on a particular tax if required.

The other document published alongside is also in an accessible open document spreadsheet format which contains a full dataset of monthly receipts and expenditure data from April 2008, and annual totals from 1999 to 2000. It also includes (for the larger taxes) annual receipts as a percentage of total annual tax revenue.

6. Coherence and Comparability

This section on coherence is the degree to which data that are derived from different sources or methods, but refer to the same topic, are similar. Comparability is the degree to which data can be compared over time and domain.

The data source for all the data in these statistics are the HMRC accounting systems.

Annual receipts data in this publication are available from the tax year 1999 to 2000. Monthly receipts data are available from April 2008.

Receipts data going back further to the tax year 1908 to 1909 is available in The National Archives.

Trade-offs between Output Quality Components

This section on trade-offs are the extent to which different aspects of quality are balanced against each other.

Throughout the year, the monthly TS accounts form the basis of our published data and so are considered reliable and accurate. The monthly published data are subject to minor revisions and remain as provisional until the publication of the HMRC Annual Report and Accounts to which these statistics are aligned.

7. Assessment of User Needs and Perceptions

This section covers the processes for finding out about users and uses, and their views on the statistical products.

Contact details for the team are available in the bulletin in case users wish to provide feedback, comments or queries on our National Statistics table.

Customers can also provide feedback directly to the contact detailed in the bulletin, via the contacts section on the HMRC statistics page or the HMRC blog.

8. Performance, Cost and Respondent Burden

This section covers the effectiveness, efficiency and economy of the statistical output.

These statistics form the basis of the PSF NABs publication and as part of that, data extraction and processing and the quality assurance involved in producing these statistics is already undertaken. There is minimal cost to producing these statistics.

9. Confidentiality, Transparency and Security

This section covers the procedures and policy used to ensure sound confidentiality, security and transparent practices.

The receipts and expenditure data in this publication are aggregated and therefore not disclosive. Our confidentiality and access policy and pre-release policy are both available on GOV.UK, along with a list of those who have pre-release access to this publication.

10. Other useful websites

The Office for Budget Responsibility(OBR) was created in 2010 to provide independent and authoritative analysis of the UK’s public finances. It is one of a growing number of official independent fiscal watchdogs around the world.

They produce and publish a medium term forecast for the UK economy and public finances and an assessment of whether the government is likely to achieve its fiscal targets, as announced in budget statements by the chancellor.

The OBR have also published a scenario that assesses the potential [impact of the coronavirus] (https://obr.uk/coronavirus-analysis/) on the economy and public finances including monthly profiles for various receipts and expenditure lines.

The annual forecasts for taxes and national insurance contributions administered by HMRC are published by the OBR on both a cash basis table 2.8 and national accounts basis table 3.4.

11. Useful Links

All statistics on taxes and expenditure administered by HMRC are available on the HMRC Statistics home page on GOV.UK.

GOV.UK includes all publications by HMRC as well as other government bodies.

Full coverage of all central government tax receipts (including business rates, Vehicle Excise Duty and Television licence) is available in the Public Sector Finance Table PSA6D published by the ONS.

Complete coverage of all UK tax receipts, including those from local government is available in Table 11.1 published in the ONS Blue Book.

Data on NICs paid by employers and employees is published by the OBR in table 2.4.

Our publications are mainly used for media commentary, policy development and research. The last survey completed on our publication is available on GOV.UK.

Older versions of HMRC statistical publications are also available in The National Archives.