The HM Revenue & Customs is expecting a GBP 2 billion boost in its revenue levels over the next four years, after much greater than expected numbers of taxpayers voulentarily disclosed hidden assets in Lichtenstein. Speaking in a media interview Dave Hartnett, the Permanent Secretary for Tax at the UK HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC), revealed that the Government’s Lichtenstein Disclosure Facility (LDF) is now expected to achieve three times the revenues levels than originally projected. The LDF allows taxpayers with undeclared ... Read More

Indian tax authorities are beginning a series of new investigations to uncover evidence of tax evasion committed by over 100 different Indian companies suspected of dodging their tax obligations through intricate offshore company structures. On December 12th the Finance Ministry of India announced that it would launching investigations to uncover evidence of tax evasion committed by over 100 high net-worth Indian businesses with operations in offshore tax havens. The investigation, which has been dubbed “Lifting the Corporate Veil”, will be run by ... Read More

The international bank Credit Suisse is set to fight a Canadian federal court order issued in October which mandated that an extensive amount of customer data be handed to Canadian national tax authorities to aid investigations into offshore tax evasion. Late last week it was revealed that on November 17th lawyers representing Credit Suisse filed an application with the Federal Court of Canada to overturn a previous ruling which granted tax authorities access to over “500 boxes” of archived transaction data and customer ... Read More

Corruption, bribery, tax evasion, and other illicit activities have led to USD 213 billion dollars being transferred out of India in the years between 1948 and 2008, or an astounding USD 462 billion in present value terms. Global Financial Integrity (GFI), an international non-profit organization promoting the global fight against cross-border flows of illegal money, have released a comprehensive new report detailing the extent of historic and current illicit capital flight out of India. The report, which was released on November 17th, claims ... Read More

The UK Government is now expecting to make a GBP 10 billion windfall over the next five years from a series of new tax information exchange agreements, greatly exceeding the previous estimate of GBP 1 billion. Three countries have recently approached the UK Government with the intention of initiating negotiations for new tax information exchange agreements. In a media statement the HM Treasury explained the significance of the potential agreements, saying, "These agreements, by allowing us to get information from tax havens, means ... Read More