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ARTICLE · 15 JULY 2015

The End Is Nigh...

UHY Hacker Young LLP
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The recent Budget and the documents released alongside it indicate a sharp escalation in HMRC's 'war' on offshore tax evasion.

United KingdomTax
Mark Giddens
Mark Giddens

The recent Budget and the documents released alongside it indicate a sharp escalation in HMRC's 'war' on offshore tax evasion.

The tightening of the ratchet

The scariest of three new measures is the proposed introduction of a 'strict liability' criminal offence for offshore evasion. Strict liability means that if you have undeclared liabilities relating to an offshore account you are, by definition, guilty – the absence of any intention to evade tax will no longer be a defence.

Not so scary, but still alarming if you have an undisclosed account, is the confirmation that more than 90 countries worldwide – including the best known "tax havens" - have now committed to the automatic exchange of taxpayer information by 2018. HMRC estimate that they will receive information including names, addresses, account numbers and balances on up to two million UK taxpayers with offshore accounts. They also anticipate that they will be able to look through trusts and shell

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