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HMRC targets service providers.

HMRC targets service providers.

 HM Revenue & Customs is stepping up efforts to catch professional enablers of tax fraud; a senior official has said, reacting to «dramatic changes» in the crime. Tax evasion was becoming «much more complex, more sophisticated, more international and more digitally enabled», Simon York, HMRC's outgoing head of serious fraud, told the Financial Times. The agency was intent on pursuing the financial and professional services facilitators of tax evasion and evaders themselves, said York, noting that this required more collaboration with international counterparts. York's comments follow calls for a crackdown on tax evasion.

Despite the introduction of transparency and anti-money laundering regulations in recent years, the government estimates that about £10bn is lost annually to tax fraud. «Tax fraud has been dramatically changing over the past decade," York said. He added that the 5,000-strong unit, the UK's largest anti-fraud team, had shifted focus from volume to the most significant, complex cases. While the number of criminal prosecutions brought by HMRC fell from about 850 in 2016-17 to 163 in 2020-21, at the height of the pandemic, the average amount it recouped rose from £2.3mn to £7.1mn in the same period.

As well as prioritising significant cases, said York, a «big focus» had been cooperation with overseas agencies to target people facilitating fraud, given the growing need «for evaders to use professionals of one sort or another. » He pointed to the «J5», an alliance formed in 2018 by his team and counterparts in Australia, Canada, the Netherlands and the US to pursue cyber criminals and enablers of international tax crime. One of the task force's first significant probes was into suspected tax evasion and money laundering at Euro Pacific Bank, based in Puerto Rico. The bank, which has since entered liquidation, had about 8,000 customers, at least 600 UK residents.

«I think the game has changed in offshore evasion,» York said. Jon Preshaw, an expert in tax disputes and former HMRC investigator, said the authority had been working «much more effectively» on significant cases with overseas counterparts, helped by provisions including the Common Reporting Standard. Failure to prevent the facilitation of tax evasion has been a corporate criminal offence since 2017. The government says it will publish estimates of the scale of evasion by UK residents with money offshore for the first time this year.

www.sba.tax

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Comments

  1. Julia12 January 2023 at 17:47

    How can you expect them to do a good job with that few people involved? No chance.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Alexander12 January 2023 at 18:05

    We would need at least 10x the 5000 you talked about to put a dent in this. Otherwise we're just kidding ourselves.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Simon12 January 2023 at 19:11

    Just 163 prosecutions!? From 850 a few years back!

    ReplyDelete

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