Text: HMRC, the UK tax collection agency, estimated that in the tax year 2016--17, pure tax evasion (i.e. not including things like hidden economy or criminal activity) cost the government 5.3 billion. This compared to a wider tax gap (the difference between the amount of tax that should, in theory, be collected by HMRC, against what is actually collected) of 33 billion in the same year, an amount that represented 5.7% of liabilities. At the same time, tax avoidance was estimated at 1.7 billion (this does not include international tax arrangements that cannot be challenged under the UK law, including some forms of base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS)).

Question: is tax evasion a crime in the uk?
yes