HMRC is unable to answer FOI request on the Lagarde list, writes John Barnett (Burges Salmon).
The FT reported (1 May) that lawyers acting for the international campaign group Avaaz ‘sent HMRC a letter asking for details of its decision to allow hundreds of suspected tax evaders to make use of an amnesty’, in the first step of a potential judicial review against the UK’s tax autho
The first prosecution resulting from the HSBC Suisse document leaks took place on Monday, when the French courts found Arlette Ricci, inheritor of the fortune from the Nina Ricci perfumes and fashion business, guilty of tax evasion.
Criticism of HMRC’s failure to prosecute HSBC Swiss tax evaders has been quite unfair, writes Jonathan Fisher QC (Devereux Chambers). There are problems with criminal prosecution and the decision to focus on tax collection through civil settlement is the right one. It makes little sense to criminally prosecute these cases.