HMRC have started making unannounced visits to high street businesses as part of an initiative to tackle tax fraud and illegal activity on the high street. More than 30,000 interventions are planned for 2026-27.
During the Autumn Budget 2025, the Chancellor announced a new 350-strong team of criminal investigators to tackle evasion by small businesses.
- This team has now been recruited and around half of their work will focus on disrupting harmful high-street businesses.
Illustrating the work this team is carrying out, unannounced visits were made to six souvenir shops in central London last week.
- The visits involved representatives from HMRC, Home Office Immigration Enforcement, Westminster Council Trading Standards and the Metropolitan Police.
The visits resulted in:
- HMRC completing full till data downloads at each location. Tax compliance enquiries will follow.
- The Home Office making three arrests for immigration-related offences and issuing a £40,000 civil penalty to one business for employing an illegal worker.
- Trading Standards seizing goods worth £5,433.
HMRC will use the intelligence gathered to inform future enforcement activity.
Interventions planned for 2026-27
HMRC intends to make more than 30,000 interventions on the high street in 2026-27.
- Interventions will include unannounced visits, tax and organised crime investigations, seizures and warning letters.
Businesses and activities that are being targeted include:
- Cash-intensive businesses that may be associated with illegal activity.
- Businesses engaged in money laundering and in breach of National Minimum Wage rules.
- Businesses selling illicit goods such as vapes and tobacco.
- Rogue directors who repeatedly shut businesses and reopen elsewhere.
- Providers and users of electronic tools that manipulate sales records to launder money or suppress sales at the till.
Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury, Dan Tomlinson, described the initiative as a sustained, nationwide effort where HMRC and its partners will use every available power to dismantle criminal networks.
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External link
Tax Minister to owners of dodgy shops: "We are coming for you"