New Worldwide Disclosure Facility

H M Revenue & Customs (“HMRC”) has recently announced a new worldwide offshore disclosure facility which is intended to encourage those whose offshore affairs are not in order to rectify these under a formal disclosure arrangement.

It is clear that H M Revenue & Customs are intending to spend significant amounts of time and resources on looking more closely at offshore structures in the future, particularly as their latest consultation sets out a new “requirement to correct” offshore tax issues before 30 September 2018 when the full impact of the exchange of information legislation happens under the common reporting standard.

As is usually the case with H M Revenue & Customs announcements they are threatening significant penalties if after 30 September 2018 an enquiry leads them to believe that there has been a failure to correct. Whilst these rules are predominantly aimed at tax evasion, it is apparent that HMRC will look to apply their proposed powers and penalties where an under-declaration arises because of a simple error or lack of understanding of our tax rules.

Whether you are an individual, a trustee or a company, we can advise you on what steps to take to regularise your affairs, or simply undertake a review of your position to give you the comfort that you affairs are optimised from a tax perspective and highlight any potential risk areas.

If you would like to find out more on what we can do for you please do not hesitate to contact Steven Strauss on 020 7 291 9000 or at steven.strauss@sgllp.co.uk.