The Chartered Institute of Payroll Professionals ……………………………………………………………Policy News Journal
Tax Avoidance & Evasion
Consultation on tackling tax evasion 20 April 2016
A consultation has been published on a new offence where businesses will be found liable where an employee, during the course of his work, facilitated tax evasion by a customer of the corporation.
The new offence would be committed where a person acting on behalf of the corporation criminally facilitated tax evasion. The requirement that the person be acting on behalf of the corporation means that the offence would be committed where an employee, during the course of his work, facilitated tax evasion by a customer of the corporation. The purpose of this consultation Tackling tax evasion: legislation and guidance for a corporate offence of failure to prevent the criminal facilitation of tax evasion is to receive views from interested parties on how the new corporate offence outlined in HMRC’s response document (December 2015) is best expressed in statute and guidance.
This consultation is not seeking feedback on the policy of introducing a new corporate criminal offence, which was covered in an earlier consultation (July – October 2015).
The Government recognise that stakeholders may have comments on the new offence that are more relevant to the guidance than the legislation. It is therefore important that the draft clauses and the draft guidance are considered together.
In the previous round of consultation some stakeholders offered real life examples of how the offence would impact their organisation and its interactions with their existing obligations.
These real life examples are particularly helpful and the Government welcomes further input from stakeholders, particularly on how they currently approach due diligence in relation to the acts of those providing services on their behalf.
Closing date for comments on this consultation is 10 July 2016
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Tax transparency progresses with international expansion 29 April 2016
Over 20 countries have joined the UK-led pilot to automatically share ownership information for companies. As such their tax and law enforcement agencies will now exchange data on company beneficial ownership registers and new registers of trusts enabling more effective investigation of financial wrongdoing and tax-dodging. Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne hailed the international expansion of a UK-led deal to automatically share information on the ultimate owners of companies as over 20 jurisdictions, including British crown dependencies, overseas territories and EU member states sign up.
Gibraltar, Isle of Man and Montserrat are amongst those joining the pilot initiated by the UK and launched with Germany, France, Italy and Spain at the G20 last week.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne said:
“Only a week after Britain launched this initiative with some of our closest European partners, it’s gaining the international support that will be vital to make it truly effective.
I welcome the early commitment made by Gibraltar, Isle of Man, Montserrat and Anguilla to participate and call on all of the remaining overseas territories and crown dependencies to do likewise.
It should be clear to all countries and tax jurisdictions that the world is moving firmly in the direction of greater tax transparency and the UK will continue to push for an internationally agreed blacklist for those that refuse to do the right thing.”
The Chartered Institute of Payroll Professionals
Policy News Journal
cipp.org.uk
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