The UK facilitating tax evasion offence – 14 live Corporate Criminal investigations
28/05/2021
The new criminally facilitating tax evasion offences came into effect on 30 September 2017. And HMRC has 28 potential CCO cases underway.
As of 27 May 2021:
- HMRC currently has 14 live CCO investigations.
- No charging decisions as yet
- A further 14 live opportunities are currently under review.
- To date, we have reviewed and rejected an additional 40 opportunities
These investigations and opportunities span X10 different business sectors, including:
- Financial services,
- Oils,
- Construction,
- Labour provision and
- Software development
The investigations and opportunities sit across all HMRC customer groups, with approximately a third covering some of the UK’s most prominent organisations.
The number and spread of investigations demonstrate that HMRC is actively enforcing the legislation across all tax and duty regimes and organisations of all shapes and sizes.
Background
- At the March 2015 Budget, the government announced that it would make it a crime for corporations to fail to have reasonable procedures to prevent associated persons from criminally facilitating tax evasion.
- The intention being that relevant bodies should be criminally liable where they fail to prevent those who act for, or on their behalf from, criminally facilitating tax evasion.
- The Corporate Criminal Offences (CCO) for the failure to prevent the facilitation of tax evasion were introduced by Part 3 of the Criminal Finances Act 2017.
Information released
- With potentially unlimited fines for organisations found guilty of the offences, organisations must take their responsibilities seriously and put in place reasonable procedures to stop the facilitation of tax evasion.
- This is not about simply increasing the number of corporate prosecutions but changing industry practice and attitudes towards risk, encouraging organisations to do more to prevent tax crime from happening in the first place.
- HMRC does not have a numerical target for these offences but will prioritise risks and sectors that will have the most impact on changing behaviour.
- The new offences came into effect on 30 September 2017 and apply to organisations that failed to prevent the facilitation of tax evasion from that date.
- HMRC has 28 potential CCO cases underway; see below for further details.
- Results will be made public as and when it is appropriate to do so.
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As well as owning and publishing Comsure's copyrighted works, Comsure wishes to use the copyright-protected works of others. To do so, Comsure is applying for exemptions in the UK copyright law. There are certain very specific situations where Comsure is permitted to do so without seeking permission from the owner. These exemptions are in the copyright sections of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (as amended)[www.gov.UK/government/publications/copyright-acts-and-related-laws]. Many situations allow for Comsure to apply for exemptions. These include 1] Non-commercial research and private study, 2] Criticism, review and reporting of current events, 3] the copying of works in any medium as long as the use is to illustrate a point. 4] no posting is for commercial purposes [payment]. (for a full list of exemptions, please read here www.gov.uk/guidance/exceptions-to-copyright]. Concerning the exceptions, Comsure will acknowledge the work of the source author by providing a link to the source material. Comsure claims no ownership of non-Comsure content. The non-Comsure articles posted on the Comsure website are deemed important, relevant, and newsworthy to a Comsure audience (e.g. regulated financial services and professional firms [DNFSBs]). Comsure does not wish to take any credit for the publication, and the publication can be read in full in its original form if you click the articles link that always accompanies the news item. Also, Comsure does not seek any payment for highlighting these important articles. If you want any article removed, Comsure will automatically do so on a reasonable request if you email info@comsuregroup.com.