HMRC launched 1,007 prosecutions against individuals for tax evasion offences last year, according to Thomson Reuters. This reflects HMRC’s success in meeting its annual target of referring 1,000 tax evasion cases to the Crown Prosecution Service, which its has managed to do every year since 2013.
Investigation and prosecution of taxpayers has been helped by bank account information received under exchange agreements with the UK’s Crown dependencies and overseas territories, particularly Bermuda and the Cayman Islands together with data beginning to flow from reporting under the common reporting standard, which will include Switzerland and the UAE later this year.
Other measures include cooperation agreements with the leading online marketplaces, allowing HMRC to gather data about sellers and enforce their VAT obligations.
These measures are supported by HMRC’s ‘connect’ database, which collects data on taxpayers from multiple sources and then cross-references information on tax returns to flag up individuals and businesses for investigation.
HMRC is increasingly focusing on tax evasion by larger businesses, chasing the higher levels of additional revenue and larger penalties involved. These cases tend to be more complex and can take longer, which may explain why fewer cases involving businesses are referred for prosecution.
The new corporate criminal offences of failing to prevent facilitation of tax evasion are among the latest additions to HMRC’s powers, making businesses liable for the actions of their employees and any contractors they use.
Brian Peccarelli, chief operating officer of customer markets at Thomson Reuters said: ‘At the centre of HMRC’s tax evasion crackdown is an unprecedented data gathering exercise, bringing in far richer information from an increasing range of countries. HMRC will be running that data through its increasingly sophisticated AI tools’.
‘Prosecutions are up significantly over the last five years and are likely to increase as new data sources filter through’, Peccarelli added.
HMRC launched 1,007 prosecutions against individuals for tax evasion offences last year, according to Thomson Reuters. This reflects HMRC’s success in meeting its annual target of referring 1,000 tax evasion cases to the Crown Prosecution Service, which its has managed to do every year since 2013.
Investigation and prosecution of taxpayers has been helped by bank account information received under exchange agreements with the UK’s Crown dependencies and overseas territories, particularly Bermuda and the Cayman Islands together with data beginning to flow from reporting under the common reporting standard, which will include Switzerland and the UAE later this year.
Other measures include cooperation agreements with the leading online marketplaces, allowing HMRC to gather data about sellers and enforce their VAT obligations.
These measures are supported by HMRC’s ‘connect’ database, which collects data on taxpayers from multiple sources and then cross-references information on tax returns to flag up individuals and businesses for investigation.
HMRC is increasingly focusing on tax evasion by larger businesses, chasing the higher levels of additional revenue and larger penalties involved. These cases tend to be more complex and can take longer, which may explain why fewer cases involving businesses are referred for prosecution.
The new corporate criminal offences of failing to prevent facilitation of tax evasion are among the latest additions to HMRC’s powers, making businesses liable for the actions of their employees and any contractors they use.
Brian Peccarelli, chief operating officer of customer markets at Thomson Reuters said: ‘At the centre of HMRC’s tax evasion crackdown is an unprecedented data gathering exercise, bringing in far richer information from an increasing range of countries. HMRC will be running that data through its increasingly sophisticated AI tools’.
‘Prosecutions are up significantly over the last five years and are likely to increase as new data sources filter through’, Peccarelli added.
