HMRC Clampdown Bites on Tax Evaders

Following hard upon an announcement by HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) that the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man are to supply information about accounts held in their financial institutions by UK residents comes the news that a clutch of Caribbean tax havens – Anguilla, Bermuda, the British Virgin Islands, Montserrat and the Turks and Caicos Islands – are also to supply this information to HMRC.



In parallel with the second announcement, HMRC announced that they are commencing a special drive to uncover undeclared overseas assets of UK residents that are held in trusts.



Recently, tax advisers who manipulated share prices of companies they had set up, so that their clients could obtain tax relief for charitable giving of many times the price they had paid for the shares, were prosecuted by HMRC.



In addition, promoters of a scheme designed to give client investors tax breaks exceeding their investment in films have been brought to book.



Lastly, HMRC reported that asset seizures in respect of unpaid VAT doubled in 2012 (a year in which HMRC intercepted more than 40,000 e-mails) and the number of criminal prosecutions for tax fraud increased by more than 50 per cent. The number of tax prosecutions is expected to increase fivefold by 2015.



HMRC are tasked with collecting an extra £22 billion a year in tax revenues and have been allocated extra funding to bring this about. Anyone suspected of evading tax can expect to be severely dealt with.