The UK Government has published the final guidance on the new corporate offences of Failure to Prevent the Criminal Facilitation of Tax Evasion, contained in Part 3 of the Criminal Finances Act 2017, which will come into force on 30 September 2017.
The Guidance is different from the draft guidance that was published in 2016, and these changes are visible in this comparison document. Notably there is a new example of the offence involving a company’s internal payroll services (page 45). As before, the guidance emphasises the importance of conducting a risk assessment as a first step towards implementing “reasonable procedures” to prevent the facilitation of tax evasion.
Norton Rose Fulbright’s summary of the offences is contained in this article.
View Tackling tax evasion: Government guidance for the corporate offences of failure to prevent the criminal facilitation of tax evasion, 1 September 2017