Some measures that affect the tax gap have weakened since the start of the pandemic, indicating that the tax gap may grow in the coming years. Non-payment of taxes owed is one such component of the tax gap that HMRC expects will grow. Levels of debt and non-payment rose considerably during the pandemic, and debt levels are not reducing as quickly as HMRC expected them to.40 Compliance yield, which reduces the tax gap, also saw a significant drop during the pandemic.41 HMRC’s Customer Compliance Group (CCG) produces planning estimates of the level of compliance yield it thinks it will need to achieve to stop the tax gap from growing, and the range of yield it thinks it could achieve. Its own planning estimates indicate that it is unlikely to generate enough compliance yield to stop the tax gap from growing in the next few years. The gap between the required level and HMRC’s mid-point planning estimate equates to around £17 billion in total over the three-year period. HMRC would need to achieve its upper estimate of compliance yield to stop the tax gap from growing, but in practice expects to achieve somewhere between its upper and mid-point estimates.42