The Corporate Criminal Offence (CCO) legislation was introduced in September 2017 to help prevent the facilitation of tax evasion in businesses.
The legislation holds companies and partnerships to account if anyone acting on their behalf helps to facilitate tax evasion. Facilitating tax evasion is a criminal offence and is subject to sanctions.
The CCO legislation applies to all companies and partnerships no matter the size or services provided. If there is a chance anyone associated with the relevant body has facilitated tax fraud, through their actions, they will come into the scope of the legislation.
The Corporate Criminal Offence is therefore a very important piece of legislation for businesses to be aware of.
For an offence to occur three stages must have taken place;
Stage 1 – Evasion of tax by a taxpayer.
Stage 2 – The facilitation of tax by an employee or associated person of the relevant body.
Stage 3 – The relevant body has failed to put appropriate policies and procedures in place to help prevent the facilitation of tax evasion.
Where a company or partnership is found to have committed an offence under the CCO legislation, they could be subject to sanctions such as unlimited fines and deferred prosecution orders. There is also a potential risk of serious reputational damage, as any convictions will be placed on public record.
At STS (Europe) we offer training courses for senior management and all other relevant employees to make staff aware of the legislation and how they can follow best practice.
Our training course is an essential part in creating a defence against the Corporate Criminal Offence.
Our training platform is currently being used by:
- Global Banks
- Global Trust Providers
- International Law Firm
If your company does not have CCO training in place, get in touch with us.
Call us on 01704 891676
Email us at info@stseurope.co.uk
Send us a message via our contact page
You can also visit our training website to see what courses we offer.
