Pictured: Graham Apperley
Tax evaders are being squeezed as never before, an expert has
warned.
Graham Apperley, tax director at the Midlands office of national
audit, tax and advisory firm Crowe Clark Whitehill, cautioned that
6,000 holders of previously secret Swiss accounts were now
targets.
He said: "HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) has announced it will
be writing to them all - the authorities are going after them with
a vengeance this time.
"Once someone receives one of those letters they are between a
rock and a hard place. The very favourable Liechtenstein Disclosure
Facility route is no longer available to them and they run the risk
of a full Code of Practice 9 investigation where professional fees
alone can run into five or even six figures.
"If you are one of the 6,000 the advice is to act now and talk
to us before you get a letter."
Mr Apperley said it appeared that HMRC had obtained the
information about the accounts from the French tax authorities who
in turn acquired it from an informant.
"The action indicates that HMRC is not prepared to wait for
people to take advantage of the recent UK-Switzerland tax deal,
which goes live from 2013 onwards, to regularise their
affairs.
"Indeed, the letters themselves remove the recipients from that
agreement, specifically excluding individuals who are the subject
of 'any co-ordinated, project-based enquiries by [HMRC] into
multiple identified taxpayers stemming from specific third-party
information'.
"And it could be worse than this for the recipients of the
letters. HMRC has said that anyone not coming forward within 30
days will be under inquiry. If the liabilities are large, they are
likely to come under a Code of Practice 9 investigation, the most
serious civil inquiry. It will also make them ineligible for the
LDF.
"The message is clear - evaders do not have time to
decide."
This latest investigation will come under the control of HMRC's
newly established Offshore Co-ordination Unit.
For more information about Crowe Clark Whitehill, please visit
their website here: www.croweclarkwhitehill.co.uk