Companies liable if employees facilitate evasion

The Criminal Finances Act 2017 which came into effect on 30 September has introduced two new criminal offences – one applying to the evasion of UK taxes and the other on evading foreign taxes.

The offences hold corporations and partnerships criminally liable when they fail to prevent their employees agents or others who provide services on their behalf from facilitating tax evasion. This is a significant change from previous law under which they could be found liable for criminally facilitating tax evasion only if the most senior members of the organisation – typically the board of directors – were aware of the transgression.

Andrew Tuson partner commercial dispute resolution at Berwin Leighton Paisner said: ‘Given the introduction of the new corporate criminal offences follows the Bribery Act offences firms should expect that the Financial Conduct Authority will not wait long before assessing...