The world’s largest tech firms are anticipated to “circumvent” the British authorities’s particular tax on digital firms earlier than new worldwide guidelines are applied, MPs have warned.

In a report printed on Tuesday, the Home of Commons public accounts committee discovered that the digital providers tax raised £358mn from 18 firms in its first yr — 30 per cent greater than anticipated. Nevertheless it warned the “profitable implementation” of the levy in 2020-21 was unlikely to proceed.

It mentioned that, since implementation of a world tax deal — set to switch the levy — was more likely to be delayed, it anticipated firms would use “the massive assets and experience at their disposal to bypass” the digital providers tax.

“Whereas there could also be no proof of lively tax avoidance or evasion by companies up to now, this may occasionally change if the lifetime of the digital providers tax is prolonged,” the report, which didn’t identify any firms, concluded.

Ministers introduced within the new digital providers tax in 2020 as a short lived measure to handle considerations that tech firms had been declaring low income within the UK by diverting income made on UK gross sales to different international locations with decrease company tax charges.

Different international locations, similar to France, Spain, Italy and Turkey, applied comparable measures. Most, together with the UK, have mentioned they’d repeal the levy as soon as an OECD settlement, which might enable international locations to tax a component of the biggest multinationals’ income the place they make their gross sales, is applied.

Though the method is progressing on the Paris-based worldwide organisation, there are few indicators that the US Congress will ratify any settlement even when the Biden administration had been to enroll.

Sarah Olney, the Liberal Democrat MP who led the PAC inquiry, mentioned: “We had been very happy to see [HM Revenue & Customs] lastly attending to grips with the realities of taxing multinational firms . . . However [HMRC] must up its recreation on compliance — particularly throughout jurisdictions — about how the tax will really function, over what’s going to most likely be years extra earlier than a correct worldwide tax is absolutely operational.”

Neil Ross, affiliate director of coverage at trade group TechUK, rejected the report’s suggestion that companies would search to seek out methods to bypass the tax as “stunning and unfounded”. He added: “From our perspective, firms try to get readability and data out of HMRC to be able to comply. However HMRC was very sluggish and never successfully resourced.”

However he agreed that the tax was a “second-best possibility . . . Political consideration needs to be centered on getting the OECD framework agreed.”

The Treasury and HMRC additionally dismissed the PAC’s warning that firms would circumvent the tax, saying it was comparatively simple to function. Officers mentioned the tax system additionally had different methods, together with the diverted income tax, to make sure tech giants paid their justifiable share.

“The digital providers tax has proved extremely efficient at taxing the UK revenues made by on-line companies forward of latest worldwide guidelines,” HMRC mentioned. It added that it had “a particularly sturdy observe report on multinational tax compliance”.