Seòmar agus comataidhean

Okay. I have hogged the floor enough. I open up the session to colleagues.

I asked about it because the tax gap is one of the contentious issues. I was looking for a ballpark figure; I was not looking for you to say that it is £10.3 million or £4.5 million. Is it about 1 or 2 or 3 per cent? If we do not know what the gap is, it is hard to tackle it. I know from your accounts that more than 99 per cent of the money that is due is being collected, but it seems to me that there might be a gap outside of that.

That is great. Indeed, that, in itself, is a very helpful comment.

Thank you for answering our questions so fully and frankly. There is one issue that you said that you would get back to us on, so we look forward to receiving that information.

That concludes the public part of today’s meeting, as our next agenda item is discussion of our work programme, which will take place in private.

So you are hoping for further progress, and are planning for and working towards that.

Our accountant, John Mason, is waiting to come in after I am finished.

The work that you are doing on compliance activity brought in some £10.4 million, but I note an increase in the total amount of penalties and interest collected in the current year of £2.065 million, compared with £1.245 million the preceding year. Can you clarify the reason for such a significant jump?

Excuse me, but I notice that you are looking at John Mason even though he did not ask the question.

On you go then.

We have noticed significant increases in your budget year on year over the past two or three years, and I imagine that it will be similar going forward.

It is the old argument about evasion versus avoidance, is it not?

Thank you very much for your contributions today. I do not know whether there are any final points that you want to make before we conclude. Is there anything that we have not touched on? Do you have any additional thoughts that have been stimulated by our questions?