HMRC has launched 839 investigations into UK taxpayers holding their assets offshore in just a year, according to figures seen by Pinsent Masons.
HMRC has launched 839 investigations into UK taxpayers holding their assets offshore in just a year, according to figures seen by Pinsent Masons.
The new ‘offshore, corporate and wealthy’ unit is part of HMRC’s fraud investigation service (FIS), which employs a total of 4,500 specialist investigators. The FIS collected £5bn in extra tax from its compliance activities last year.
The unit was founded around the time of the Panama Papers leak and has been receiving ‘vast amounts’ of data on individuals’ bank accounts since 2016 from offshore financial centres, including the Channel Islands, Bermuda and the British Virgin Islands. This information has helped HMRC identify over 3,800 ‘serious’ tax evasion cases in the year to 31 March 2018.
HMRC has been set a target of 100 tax evasion prosecutions of wealthy individuals and corporates each year by 2020. This has been made easier to achieve by the strict liability offences for offshore tax evasion and will be aided further once the new ‘requirement to correct’ rules come into effect in October 2018, warns Jason Collins, tax partner at Pinsent Masons.
‘Taxpayers with offshore interests must have their affairs in order because HMRC is pursuing every lead as it looks to hit its prosecution targets,’ Collins said.
HMRC has launched 839 investigations into UK taxpayers holding their assets offshore in just a year, according to figures seen by Pinsent Masons.
HMRC has launched 839 investigations into UK taxpayers holding their assets offshore in just a year, according to figures seen by Pinsent Masons.
The new ‘offshore, corporate and wealthy’ unit is part of HMRC’s fraud investigation service (FIS), which employs a total of 4,500 specialist investigators. The FIS collected £5bn in extra tax from its compliance activities last year.
The unit was founded around the time of the Panama Papers leak and has been receiving ‘vast amounts’ of data on individuals’ bank accounts since 2016 from offshore financial centres, including the Channel Islands, Bermuda and the British Virgin Islands. This information has helped HMRC identify over 3,800 ‘serious’ tax evasion cases in the year to 31 March 2018.
HMRC has been set a target of 100 tax evasion prosecutions of wealthy individuals and corporates each year by 2020. This has been made easier to achieve by the strict liability offences for offshore tax evasion and will be aided further once the new ‘requirement to correct’ rules come into effect in October 2018, warns Jason Collins, tax partner at Pinsent Masons.
‘Taxpayers with offshore interests must have their affairs in order because HMRC is pursuing every lead as it looks to hit its prosecution targets,’ Collins said.
