All 550 UK banks to face offshore accounts probe
Taxman vows to extend search for offshore accounts to all 550 UK banks
Dave Hartnett, director general of
HM Revenue & Customs
, has vowed that tax investigators will not limit their search for offshore
bank accounts to the five banks targeted by their latest disclosure order, but
will extend their search to include all 550 banks in the UK.
AccountancyAge.com
exclusively revealed on Friday that only 4,000 people had taken advantage of
the ‘amnesty’ offered to holders of offshore accounts who had not paid tax, a
mere 1% of the total of suspicious accounts HMRC is eyeing.
HMRC obtained a disclosure order for five high street banks to release all
the details of some 400,000 clients with offshore accounts, and is planning to
extend this search to other UK banks.
‘It is very important to have a level playing field. We are not going to roll
up our tent and go away,’ Hartnett told the FT in a follow up article.
Further reading:
Read the breaking story from AccountancyAge.com
Taxman targets £1.5bn in largest disclosure order