The figures shed light on how seriously UK authorities are chasing and penalising tax evaders. This report contains a number of eye-catching cases, some involving hundreds of millions of pounds.

HM Revenue & Customs, the UK tax authority, has stepped up successful investigations into tax evasion, with 525 prison sentences meted out to offenders in the past year, up from 503 a year before, new figures show. 

The number of criminal probes by HMRC rose 11 per cent to 386 from 347, law firm Pinsent Masons says, basing its findings on official figures for the 12 months to September 2024.

The firm expects the authorities, at a time when governments are hungry for revenue to meet high public spending, to turn up the heat even further on suspected tax evaders.

Targeted criminal prosecutions of tax evaders is partly used by HMRC to act as a deterrent and to persuade tax evaders to use HMRC’s Contractual Disclosure Facility. This offers individuals immunity from criminal prosecution in return for a full disclosure of the tax evasion they have been involved with, Steven Porter, partner and head of tax disputes and Investigations at Pinsent Masons, said.

The maximum penalty for income tax evasion is a fourteen-year prison sentence and/or an unlimited fine. This had doubled from seven years in the Finance Act 2024.

“HMRC are sending a clear message to tax evaders that they won’t be let off lightly – longer sentences send a strong message that HMRC will use the full force of the law,” Porter said. 

Several lengthy sentences for tax evasion have been handed out in recent years, including:

-- Two members of a clothing manufacturing company sentenced to a combined total of 31 years, alongside 26 other members sentenced to a total of 147 years and seven months for carrying out a “carousel fraud” scheme, falsely claiming £97 million ($122.7 million) of VAT repayments on false exports; 

-- A partner of an accountancy firm in Northern Ireland was handed a four-year sentence for creating, alongside 26 accomplices, a false audit trail for construction clients to avoid tax totalling over £5 million; 

-- Two property developers were sentenced to a total of eight years for using offshore companies to hide money from the sale of land, evading £3.2 million in corporation tax; and 

-- Former Formula One owner Bernie Ecclestone was sentenced to a 17-month jail term, suspended for two years, after failing to declare offshore assets over of £400 million.