Money Laundering Reports on Tax Evasion
Originally sent: July 19, 2004Last July we advised you that accountants and tax advisers were shortly to join the rest of us in being obliged to report any suspected money laundering offences ? which includes the use of any money obtained through tax evasion.
The new regulations are now with us. And they will be far reaching. The clear inclusion of tax offences affects all of us, not just the accountants and tax planners who are now brought into the money laundering reporting fold.
Do you have clients you suspect have fiddled their tax? If you have good reason for suspecting this you really do have to make a money laundering report, and so does their accountant or tax planner if that individual has good cause for reaching the same suspicion.
How about clients who may have, shall we say, a slightly murky past with regard to their tax and are now looking to sell their business? Has it occurred to them that if the accountants and solicitors performing due diligence suspect they have deliberately understated tax liabilities ? and they have to look for this kind of thing, especially in a share sale, in order to protect their own clients? interests ? a secret report will be made to the National Criminal Intelligence Service?
Of course, besides the morality and besides the risk of being caught, it is really quite silly for clients to evade paying their taxes when there are so many legal ways for them to avoid paying tax. Yes, the Chancellor keeps closing the loopholes, but as he does so more open up for those who know where to look ? and some of the more obvious but less damaging to the Treasury are left completely untouched. And how about all the tax mitigation schemes you can operate with the full approval of Inland Revenue?
Adviser Breakthrough Training Solutions Ltd. takes no responsibility for loss occasioned by any person acting or refraining from action, or in consequence of any other person acting or refraining from action, as a result of the material in this article.
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