Tackling tax evasion was a hot topic during the 2015 UK election. Buoyed by its success at the polls and the strength of public opinion, the UK government recently announced four consultations as part of its publication: Tackling Evasion and Avoidance. a new criminal offence for offshore evaders civil deterrents for offshore evaders civil sanctions […]

Revenue & Customs has so far collected just £13.9m from an initiative to prise open secret bank accounts in the Crown Dependencies which was originally expected to end up raising £1bn. Just over 400 people have so far come forward to own up to previously undeclared accounts in the Isle of Man, Jersey and Guernsey, […]

HMRC has secured an extra £2.7bn for the government’s coffers by clamping down on tax avoidance and evasion in the last year, its annual accounts have shown. When the extra is accounted for, the tax office clawed back a total to £26.6bn in 2014-15, up from £23.9bn the previous year. Tax evasion as, opposed to […]

Stretched HMRC tax investigators are to be armed with £800m of extra funding over the next five years to combat tax evasion and non-compliance, the chancellor has promised, as part of a drive to raise £7.2bn. Only £60m of the new funds will be devoted to serious and complex tax-crime investigations, though this sum would […]

A FATHER and son from Surrey have been convicted of laundering millions of pounds of British taxpayers’ money in offshore bank accounts. Daniel Andrew Barrs, 65, from New Place Gardens in Lingfield and his 29-year-old son Daniel Barrs of Suffolk Close, Horley, were found guilty of laundering more than £20 million. The pair laundered some […]

A former HMRC tax officer who set up an online business trading games consoles, video games and DVDs has been sentenced for stealing more than £12,000 from the public purse. Foster set up the business after he was sacked from a HMRC contact centre in Country Durham in 2009. Neil James Foster fraudulently declared £31,000 […]

More people are going to prison for tax evasion in the UK, according to official statistics, although the average length of these jail terms has fallen over the past four years. It can be seen that HMRC is making broader use of its prosecution powers and pushing for the maximum penalty in a wider range […]

A director of troubled online betting brand 666bet was reportedly arrested last week by HM Revenue & Customers (HMRC) and the  National Crime Agency in connection with their joint investigation ‘Operation Bannock’ into money laundering and fraud. This weekend The Independent newspaper revealed that a further six people and had been arrested, as 13 properties […]