It was announced yesterday that HMRC are investigating 9 companies for failing to prevent the facilitation of tax evasion.
Originally announced in the March 2015 budget, the Corporate Criminal Offence came into effect on 30th September 2017. The stated aim of the legislation is to put responsibility on corporate entities to help tackle tax evasion. Corporates must have ‘reasonable procedures’ that will prevent the facilitation of tax evasion by any persons associated with the company.
Those found to be failing in preventing the facilitation of tax evasion can be subject to unlimited fines. Alternatively, ancillary orders such as confiscation orders or serious crime prevention orders with the prosecutions can be brought against them by the Crown prosecution service (CPS) or the serious fraud office (SFO).
Further to the 9 live investigations HMRC has stated that there are 21 further prosecution opportunities under review across 10 different business sectors.
A link to the full article from STEP can be found here.
