HMRC is making less use of mediation and forcing taxpayers into litigation in tax disputes, City law firm RPC has claimed.

The tax HMRC has raised by resolving tax disputes through Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) dropped by 40 percent from £44.5 million to £26.6 million in the year ended March 31 2020.

The number of applications for mediation fell by four percent from 1,114 to 1,066 in the same period.

The drop in the use of ADR was in part due to HMRC imposing strict criteria on when an application for ADR could be made and refusing any application which was made after they had formally set out their p...