The Pandora papers involved the release of millions of documents from a number of different offshore financial service providers, revealing amongst other financial activities, serious tax avoidance and evasion.
HMRC have now begun writing letters to individuals (example here) named in the leak to ask them to check they have informed HMRC of all the overseas income and gains that they were required to, in previous tax years. HMRC are giving recipients 30 days to reply to the letter, warning of 200% penalties on unpaid tax and further prosecution, for non-disclosure, as their investigations progress.
These penalties being proposed are not something new and have applied to undisclosed income and gains for several years now, in certain circumstances.
Holding offshore assets, including those in less transparent structures and/or jurisdictions, is not in itself illegal and there are many legitimate reasons why an individual may do so. It may therefore be that no action is required by you if you receive one of these letters. We would nevertheless recommend that you receive professional advice before you reach this conclusion.
We have experience on advising clients on how to respond to these letters and have helped hundreds of individuals review their tax affairs and make disclosures to HMRC using the worldwide disclosure facility.
If you have any concerns regarding HMRC’s recent action in this area, or may need help in responding to HMRC, our team specialise in providing comprehensive tax advisory and compliance services involving cross border issues such as these and would be happy to speak with you on this matter and discuss your possible next course of action.
