HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) has assigned compliance managers to more than 200 people whose wealth it estimates exceeds £1 billion and who must file UK Self-Assessment returns, regardless of residency.
In a plan published Oct. 28, the agency said it identified the group during summer 2026 using its records, public information and data from third parties and other countries. People qualify if HMRC estimates their wealth at more than £1 billion and UK rules require them to file a Self-Assessment return, whether they live in Britain or abroad.
HMRC assigned a Customer Compliance Manager (CCM) to each person and offered a voluntary conversation, either early in the process or before a return is filed. Managers can coordinate relevant teams and specialists when a person’s affairs involve complexity or risk. HMRC says wealth or complex arrangements alone do not indicate noncompliance, and that most people in its broader wealthy taxpayer group meet their obligations.
That wider group numbered 1.3 million in 2025-26. HMRC defines it as people whose income exceeded £200,000 or whose assets exceeded £2 million in any of the previous three years; the group accounted for £160 billion in tax receipts during 2025-26.
HMRC estimated the wider group’s tax gap at £3.6 billion in 2024-25, equal to 6% of the total tax gap. The estimate covers personal taxes including Self-Assessment, Inheritance Tax and Stamp Duty Land Tax; it does not give a separate figure for the identified billionaires. HMRC rates the Self-Assessment part of the estimate as highly uncertain.
The manager assignments sit within a broader effort to address wealthy offshore noncompliance. HMRC aims to recruit or redeploy 400 additional specialists by 2030 and said 244 had already been recruited into relevant roles. It links the wider actions to at least £500 million in additional revenue toward the government’s £10 billion commitment by 2029-30, without assigning a separate yield to the manager program.
In July 2025, Parliament’s Committee of Public Accounts said HMRC lacked a complete view of billionaires’ UK tax contributions and called for better information on their wealth and assets. HMRC plans to refresh its identified population annually and publish a standalone offshore tax-gap estimate in 2027.
