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Revenue watch: Do tax amnesties work?

Richard Clarke and Hannah Foulkes examine the effectiveness of recent HMRC initiatives

HMRC has launched a number of initiatives over the last three years variously described as ‘opportunities’ or ‘facilities’ and in turn these have been reported to be ‘amnesties’. The thrust behind these initiatives has been to allow errant taxpayers a quick and cheap way to address shortcomings in their dealings with HMRC invariably by declaring for the first time income or gains sitting in undisclosed bank accounts.

Each initiative has required the payment of the tax due plus interest and a flat rate penalty. The only real incentives being offered are the reduced penalty and the (more or less) guaranteed immunity from prosecution. So have these so-called amnesties really worked? And can HMRC learn anything from the responses to date and the experiences in other...

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