Press Room
New Disclosure Opportunity extended to give customers with
offshore accounts more time to come forward
Paul Roberts, Head of Tax Investigations at Grant Thornton says
"Today's announcement on the extension for those who hold offshore
accounts to disclose their tax affairs under the New Disclosure
Opportunity (NDO) comes as no surprise. The initial take up of this
initiative has been slow and whilst we have received quite a number
of instructions under the NDO the wider market place has generally
seen a relatively low take up of the initiative.
"The banks and financial institutions who were served
information notices about the NDO in August are only now beginning
to comply in handing over information about their customers. As a
result many customers are yet to be contacted by their banks
as to their own offshore accounts. The extension of the NDO
registration deadline is therefore a recognition by HMRC that
many bank customers should not be disadvantaged and that further
banks will be writing in the coming weeks.
"The deadline for notification has moved to 4th January from 30
November for online disclosure registration. After registration,
the submission deadline for full paper disclosures of any liability
is 31 January 2010 and for online disclosures it remains 12 March
2010. Accordingly the time limits for the submission of disclosures
remain the same and this will ensure that it will be ever tighter
for those tax payers who decide to make a late disclosure.
The extension of the registration deadline this time round
contrasts strongly with the earlier 2007 disclosure opportunity,
the Offshore Discosure Facility (NDO) where the big five banks* had
written to their customers in advance of the initiative and indeed
HMRC followed this up with their own individual mailings. This time
round correspondence to customers from both banks and HMRC has been
sporadic.
"Under the current initiative offshore account holders making a
disclosure face a fixed penalty of 10% of the tax owed if they are
not customers of the five major retail banks targeted in the 2007
amnesty. Those who failed to come forward under the 2007
Offshore Disclosure Facility (ODF) will face a 20% fixed
penalty. HMRC has said penalties will be no less than 30% for
those who fail to make disclosures under the ODF or NDO and are
likely to amount up to 100%.
"HMRC is certainly hardening their approach to offshore bank
accounts and in next month's Pre Budget Report we are likely
to see additional new measures. We are also likely to witness a
number of high-profile criminal prosecutions in due course in order
to act as a deterrent to those trying to avoid paying the correct
amount of tax."
For further information on HMRC's NDO, Roberts advises those who
believe they may be affected to go to: http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/offshoreaccounts/index.htm
For further information please contact
Marielle Legair, Grant Thornton Press Office, 0207 728 2183