Does the Criminal Finances Bill put you at risk?
VinciWorks has created a five minute tax evasion assessment to help you evaluate your exposure to the new corporate criminal offence for failure to prevent tax evasion.
About Tax Evasion Risk Assessment
Described as “the largest expansion of UK corporate criminal liability since the Bribery Act”, the Criminal Finances Bill creates a new corporate criminal offence for failing to prevent tax evasion. HMRC has committed to naming and shaming tax evasion ‘enablers’, those who assist individuals in evading tax. New rules mean that organisations can be held liable for assisting in tax evasion even if they were not aware that it is taking place.
Businesses can now be held responsible for the actions of their employees, whether or not the business was aware of an employee’s criminal activities. A business’ only defence is to take “reasonable measures” to ensure that its employees do not facilitate tax evasion. HMRC has identified training and communication as a key ‘reasonable measure’. Further, professional advisers could now face fines of up to £3000 for helping clients evade their taxes.
New tax evasion laws: take our tax evasion risk assessment questionnaire
Our short tax evasion risk assessment will help you evaluate your organisation’s exposure. The assessment will contain questions on 4 core parts in ensuring you are not facilitating in tax evasion: business risk, internal policies and culture, monitoring and reviewing financial crime policies, and the training your staff is undertaking. The assessment ends with helpful guidelines on remaining compliant with tax evasion regulations based on the answers you give. Even if you don’t know all of the answers initially, it is worthwhile to complete the assessment as an audit tool.
