HM Revenue and Customs - Departmental Responsibilities

Departmental Responsibilities

The department is responsible for the administration and collection of direct taxes including income tax and corporation tax, capital taxes such as capital gains tax and inheritance tax, indirect taxes (including value added tax), excise duties and stamp duty land tax, and environmental taxes such as Air Passenger Duty and the climate change levy. Other aspects of the department's responsibilities include National Insurance contributions, the distribution of child benefit and some other forms of state support including the Child Trust Fund, payments of Tax Credits, enforcement of the national minimum wage, administering anti-money laundering registrations for Money Service Businesses and collection and publication of the trade-in-goods statistics. Responsibility for the protection of the UK's borders passed to the UK Border Agency within the Home Office on 1 April 2008.

HMRC has two overarching Public Service Agreement targets for the period 2008–2011:

• Improve the extent to which individuals and businesses pay the tax due and receive the credits and payments to which they are entitled
• Improve customers' experiences of HMRC and improve the UK business environment