Corporate failure to prevent facilitation of tax evasion

It has been widely reported that a new criminal offence is being introduced to eliminate the difficulty in charging larger corporate bodies for tax crimes under our current laws which require the authorities to prove that senior management (the ‘directing mind’) was involved. Under the new law a ‘relevant body’ will commit a criminal offence if a person whilst performing services for or on behalf of the body  criminally facilitates fraudulent tax evasion by a third party. It will be a defence to show that reasonable prevention procedures were in place or that it was not reasonable in the circumstances to have any...