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What if you want to make a disclosure of tax fraud but do not have any offshore assets?
The practical difficulties that may be faced when taking part in the tax amnesty (offshore disclosure) are numerous.
The offshore disclosure scheme (tax amnesty) makes it clear that it does not cover individuals of businesses who do not have any assets offshore (that is all of the assets and the related tax evasion are in “the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland”..
It would seem to be unjust and perhaps in breach of the Human Rights Legislation of HMRC not to offer a similar “tax amnesty” to individuals who have UK assets and have committed tax fraud.
The leaflet DS101 “Making a Disclosure” does actually cover this situation under the heading on page 4 of “Disclosures outside this Facility”. This states that you cannot take part in the offshore disclosure tax amnesty but that you can approach HMRC and make a voluntary disclosure of tax evasion. Thus it would appear that there is some form of tax amnesty on offer for people who do not have overseas assets.
If a voluntary disclosure is made and the individual makes a “full disclosure with payment under the same terms” then they can expect to be treated in the same way.
A risk is that, as with the tax amnesty, there is no guarantee of immunity from prosecution even if a full disclosure is made. Thus without careful handling an individual may be giving the Crown information which can be used against the individual.
It is rumoured that HMRC officers have been instructed to take the name, reference and address of any individual who falls outside of the offshore disclosure tax amnesty along with an outline of the disclosure to be made (which in its self is more than is required on the offshore tax amnesty). This information will be passed on to an HMRC official to be reviewed.
It has been suggested that this individual will be the HMRC officer who heads up the Civil Investigation of Fraud teams (for more information see the section on Civil Investigation of Fraud). The Civil Investigation of Fraud teams have to first consider if the matter should be referred to the Criminal Prosecution Unit. If it is not appropriate to do so then it will be considered whether it should be dealt with under the Civil Investigation of Fraud procedures (for cases where the tax and VAT exceed £75,000 and if so it should be dealt with under these procedures). If the tax is under the £75,000 ceiling then they will probably be referred to the local tax compliance units. Whether they are geared up to deal with this is a different matter.
If you would like to discuss any possible disclosure to HMRC or any matter to do with the potential tax amnesty or how to deal with any tax evasion difficulties please phone 0800 734 3333 or e-mail scott.gilbert@gilberttax.co.uk now
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