Category Archives: Thought leadership

What does the gambling industry need to do about money laundering?

Someone gambling online

AML training requirements for gambling operators

What is the requirement?

All gambling operators have a statutory duty to keep financial crime out of gambling. The Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (POCA) obligates gambling operators to be alert to customers who try to gamble unlawfully acquired money. Money laundering includes both using illegal cash to clean the money as well as simply using it to fund gambling.

Money laundering risks are not only found in the operator-to-customer relationship, however. They can also occur in business-to-business relationships, as well as with any third parties operators contract with.

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Upcoming webinar: DAC6 — Understanding HMRC’s draft guidance

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Wednesday 22 April, 12:00pm

Back in January, VinciWorks held a core group meeting with HMRC’s DAC6 policy lead James Marshall. A key outcome of the meeting was that HMRC would be required to provide clarifications in its DAC6 guidance document in order to answer many pressing questions that law firms and other intermediaries had about the UK’s implementation of DAC6.

At the end of March 2020, HMRC shared with VinciWorks the latest version of its draft guidance. While the final guidance is not expected until later on in the year, the draft guidance gives much insight into HMRC’s view of this challenging piece of legislation.

In this webinar, VinciWorks’ Legal and Research Executive Ruth Mittelmann Cohen and Director of Best Practice Gary Yantin will take us through the details of HMRC’s latest draft guidance on DAC6.

Key talking points:

  • Reportable cross-border arrangements, including the impact of Brexit
  • Understanding the main benefit test and tax advantages
  • HMRC’s interpretation of the hallmarks, including relevant examples
  • Reporting obligations and the relevant reporting triggers
  • Details of information to be reported
  • The potential penalties for non-compliance and examples of finable offences

Free registration

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DAC6 guide to compliance updated

DAC6 guide cover

On 25 May 2018, the Economic and Financial Affairs Council of the European Union (ECOFIN) adopted the 6th Directive on Administrative Cooperation (the “Directive”), requiring so-called tax intermediaries to report certain cross-border arrangements that contain at least one of the hallmarks as defined in the Directive. The new EU rules which aim to clamp down on aggressive tax planning are set to impose a huge compliance burden on taxpayers and their advisers, potentially even in circumstances where there is no tax benefit at all.

Last year, we published a guide to help businesses better understand DAC6. Since then, we have consulted with HMRC and leading international firms to update the guide.

The guide covers:

  • The purpose and scope of the Directive
  • Who the Directive applies to and which transactions must be reported
  • The hallmarks that must be met in order to require reporting and an explanation of relevant terms relating to each hallmark
  • Guidance on preparation for DAC6
  • Advice and tools for reporting cross-border arrangements

Download the guide

On-demand webinar: Mental Health: Wellbeing at Work

There has been increasing public awareness, political concern, and corporate action on mental health in the UK in recent years. This comes amid more referrals to mental health services, an explosion in prescriptions for anti-depressants, an increase in work days lost to mental health problems, and a stark rise in suicide, particularly among young men. In light of the current COVID-19 pandemic, stress and anxiety will only be exacerbated.

In this webinar, we explored employers’ moral and legal responsibility towards their staff’s wellbeing. We were also joined by DAC Beachcroft’s Head of Employee Relations Ben Morris and Pinsent Masons LLP’s Diversity and Inclusion Consultant Kate Dodd to explore initiatives that businesses have introduced to good effect and what lessons have been learnt.

Watch now

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New course release – COVID-19: Working From Home

How to stay safe during extended periods out of the office

Screenshot of COVID-19 course

The coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak is continuing to bring daily routine to a halt. In the UK, the number of cases continues to rise, an increasing number of people are entering self-isolation and employers are asking their staff to work from home. The unpredictable nature of the epidemic could mean you might be working out of the office for some time.

VinciWorks has released a five minute course to help staff manage working out of the office for an extended period of time.

Demo the course

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AML 2020: Vinciworks set to release new anti-money laundering course

The new AML course includes interactive knowledge checks throughout as well as a test section at the end

VinciWorks will soon be releasing a new Anti Money Laundering course that will provide learners with an in-depth understanding of how money laundering can affect them and their business and what they can do to avoid becoming involved.

The Fifth Anti-Money Laundering Directive, which came into force in the UK and around the European Union on 10 January 2020, provided an update to the Fourth Directive and aims to prevent the use of the financial system for money laundering and terrorist financing.

VinciWorks’ current anti-money laundering training suite

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DAC6 EU Member States implementation: updated country-by-country guide

VinciWorks in collaboration with Transfer Pricing Services have updated their DAC6 country-by-country guide. This is the only consolidated DAC6 guide of this nature available.

What is the DAC6 country-by-country implementation guide?

This important piece of guidance provides intermediaries and taxpayers with the most relevant updated information on how DAC6 legislation has been implemented across EU Member States and in the UK.

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DAC6 courses fully updated – which course should your staff take?

Screenshot of DAC6 advanced training scenarios
Our DAC6: Advanced course includes real scenarios to test users’ knowledge and understanding of their reporting requirements

DAC6 is a European Directive aimed at tackling tax avoidance and tax evasion, strengthening tax transparency and improving information sharing between EU member states. The Directive requires lawyers, accountants, tax advisers, bankers and other “intermediaries” to report certain aggressive cross-border arrangements. These “mandatory disclosure requirements” (MDR) mean that even arrangements without a particular tax motive may need to be reported to the tax authorities. Training is recommended in order to understand the intricacies of these hallmarks and to determine which transactions must be reported. 

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How to get the most out of your compliance training – Free guide

Compliance Week guide on getting the most out of compliance training

Traditionally one of the more thankless jobs in compliance, training is evolving from a tedious, yet critical, requirement to an engaging, informative exercise. Not only does training keep your organisation walking an ethical straight line, but it can also help identify strengths and weaknesses in your culture.

In a recent study, we partnered with Compliance Week to get managers’ views on effective compliance training. We measured the success of current programmes and solicited views on the future of training technology. The results, together with insights from our COO, have now been published by Compliance Week.

Download the guide

Founded in 2002, Compliance Week is the leading business intelligence service on corporate governance, risk and compliance.

Business continuity response to coronavirus

VinciWorks has had a robust business continuity plan in place for years. That plan and multiple backup systems have allowed us to weather many unexpected events without any impact to operations.

That said, as Covid-19 continues to spread, we have reexamined those plans, stress-tested them, and added additional safety and backup measures. This is to ensure that our service and customer support remain available and unrestricted throughout this difficult period. 

Keeping our customers up and running

Despite the global spread of Covid-19 and the uncertainty around the virus’ future impact, we do not anticipate any interruptions to our service. Our business is designed to work seamlessly with a global distributed workforce and our IT systems have built-in redundancies. 

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