‘The world has changed for tax evaders,’ Dave Hartnett, Permanent Secretary for Tax at HMRC, said as HM Treasury announced yesterday’s agreement with Switzerland to address evasion by UK taxpayers.
The UK’s tax deal with Switzerland is expected to come into force in 2013, following scrutiny by Parliament and after ratification procedures in Switzerland are complete, HM Treasury said.
An ‘historic’ agreement with Switzerland will resolve abuse of Swiss banking secrecy by UK taxpayers and is expected to secure billions of pounds of unpaid tax from 2013, HM Treasury announced last night.
Draft guidance for HMRC staff on the department’s updated Litigation and Settlement Strategy (LSS) runs to 45 pages.
The ‘refreshed’ LSS published last month sets out the principles governing HMRC’s handling of disputes in relation to taxes, duties and tax credits.
Leading tax bodies have called on HMRC to take deliberate steps to win the trust of tax agents, many of whom ‘cannot understand’ why HMRC are considering investing in a system to monitor agents when the department needs to focus on improving its services.
The proposed monitoring of tax agents by HMRC may offer the long term advantage of ‘removing from the system’ poor agents who undercut prices charged by those providing a better quality service, according to the ICAEW’s Tax Faculty.
HMRC are inviting comments on a proposed contractual disclosure facility to tighten the department’s procedures for the civil investigation of fraud and identify taxpayers who are not ‘honestly engaged’ with the system.