Tax evasion: HMRC to probe offshore accounts of UK residents |
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Mon, 20 Jun 2005 02:05
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HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) has announced that it plans to ask offshore credit card companies to hand over account details in an attempt to detect tax evasion.
The HMRC issued a statement saying that it was "increasingly focused on tackling tax evasion by people using offshore debit and credit cards". Legal firm DLA Piper Rudnick Gray Cary said that HMRC’s Offshore Fraud Project Group (OFPG) had touted this move. This group was established in 2003 to investigate UK residents who were suspected of evading tax by stashing assets in offshore tax havens such as the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man. It must be noted that under current laws, it is not illegal for an UK resident to operate offshore accounts, but he/she has to declare the interest earned, which is taxable.
| Aileen Barry, national tax investigations director at DLA Piper, revealed that more than 10 "production orders" had been issued by the OFPG to financial institutions in the UK. These orders asked the firms to disclose information about UK residents who have offshore accounts, "The information provided by the financial institutions has given the OFPG evidence with which it will mount a vast number of investigations into people who may have failed to declare all their income for tax purposes. On the basis of the information that it has gathered, thousands of people will be investigated for suspected tax evasion. Of those individuals, a number, almost certainly, will be prosecuted," Ms Barry, confirmed.
Meanwhile the HMRC issued a statement saying that it was aware that offshore accounts were used by UK residents to evade tax, "HMRC is increasingly focused on tackling tax evasion by people using offshore debit and credit cards and we are using a very wide range of information sources to solve the problem in order to create a fair and level playing field for all taxpayers. This means is it is no longer possible to evade UK tax by simply salting away money in an offshore account. The best way forward for those with offshore accounts that they have not told us about is to get in touch with us as soon as possible," the statement said.
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