Tax evaders are being squeezed as never before, an expert has warned.
Graham Apperley, tax director at the Midlands office of national audit, tax and advisory firm Crowe Clark Whitehill, cautioned that 6,000 holders of previously secret Swiss accounts were now targets.
He said: “HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) has announced it will be writing to them all – the authorities are going after them with a vengeance this time.
“Once someone receives one of those letters they are between a rock and a hard place. The very favourable Liechtenstein Disclosure Facility route is no longer available to them and they run the risk of a full Code of Practice 9 investigation where professional fees alone can run into five or even six figures.
“If you are one of the 6,000 the advice is to act now and talk to us before you get a letter.”
Mr Apperley said it appeared that HMRC had obtained the information about the accounts from the French tax authorities who in turn acquired it from an informant.
“The action indicates that HMRC is not prepared to wait for people to take advantage of the recent UK-Switzerland tax deal, which goes live from 2013 onwards, to regularise their affairs.
“Indeed, the letters themselves remove the recipients from that agreement, specifically excluding individuals who are the subject of ‘any co-ordinated, project-based enquiries by [HMRC] into multiple identified taxpayers stemming from specific third-party information’.
“And it could be worse than this for the recipients of the letters. HMRC has said that anyone not coming forward within 30 days will be under inquiry. If the liabilities are large, they are likely to come under a Code of Practice 9 investigation, the most serious civil inquiry. It will also make them ineligible for the LDF.
“The message is clear – evaders do not have time to decide.”
This latest investigation will come under the control of HMRC’s newly established Offshore Co-ordination Unit.