Tony Beare (Slaughter and May) examines the recent eagerly anticipated First-tier Tribunal decision of Next Brand Ltd v HMRC on dividend boosters.
According to Baker Tilly, more than 6,000 tax defaulters were referred to a special HMRC monitoring unit in 2014/15 – a 30% increase on the year before – in a sign that HMRC is getting much tougher on those who deliberately seek to default on their tax liabilities.
City law firm RPC has said there has been a 29% rise in the number of tax investigations into internationally mobile high earners by HMRC in the last year, and that the firm ‘does not expect any let up in HMRC’s investigations of this class of high earners’.
The Bribery Act has laid the foundation for a new criminal offence, which will require corporates to conduct ever greater levels of due diligence, says Jason Collins (Pinsent Masons)
Shiv Mahalingham and Danny Beeton (Duff & Phelps) revisit the legislation, case law and HMRC practice relating to discovery assessments to discover what they will mean for taxpayers
Tax authorities are preparing for new models of international cooperation. Tessa Lorimer (Withers) outlines HMRC’s preparations to date, and the impact these reporting standards will have on its information gathering and enforcement powers
Andrew Goldstone and Helen Manis (Mishcon de Reya) review the latest developments that matter in the private client arena
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
HMRC’s efforts to secure penalties in tax planning cases, despite taxpayers having been professionally advised, constituted a flawed approach, argues Iain Macleod (EDF Tax Defence)
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.