Offshore tax evaders and the professionals who enable tax evasion will face even tougher sanctions, it was announced this morning.
A new regime to crack down on offshore evaders was detailed today by David Gauke, the Financial Secretary to the Treasury.

The March 2015 Budget announced a toughening of the approach to tackling offshore tax evasion including early closure of the current offshore facilities, Liechtenstein Disclosure Facility and Crown Dependency Disclosure Facilities.

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HM Revenue and Customs will consult on new measures from today. These include:

• A new criminal offence for offshore evasion – so in the worst cases it’s no longer possible to plead ignorance in an attempt to avoid criminal prosecution.

• A new criminal offence for corporates who fail to prevent tax evasion or the facilitation of tax evasion on their watch.

• Increasing the financial penalties faced by evaders – including, for the first time, linking a penalty to the value of the asset hidden offshore.

• New civil penalties on those who facilitate evasion so they will face the same penalty as the tax evader.

• Publicly naming both evaders and those who enable evasion.

Speaking at HMRC’s stakeholder conference in London, Mr Gauke said: “Time’s up for people who don’t pay their fair share of tax by hiding their money offshore. People who evade tax, facilitate or turn a blind eye to tax evasion will now face powerful criminal and civil sanctions under our tough new regime.

“We’ve already seen over 90 countries across the world sign up to automatically exchange information on taxpayers. This, together with our new sanctions will mean there is nowhere left to hide for offshore tax evaders.”

HMRC said there had been “huge progress in tackling offshore tax evasion” in recent years, having collected over £2 billion from previously undisclosed offshore income through agreements with Switzerland, Liechtenstein and the Channel Islands.

These offshore disclosure agreements will close early (31 December 2015) and be replaced by a tougher last chance facility ahead of the automatic exchange of tax information with over 90 countries, including tax havens, from 2017.