Corporate criminal offence investigations ramped up during 2020

HMRC has ten live corporate criminal offence (CCO) investigations at 31 July 2020. Since December 2019 it has opened one new investigation. No charging decisions have yet been made. HMRC has published these statistics as a result of several freedom of information requests.

The department has a further 22 live opportunities currently under review. These investigations and opportunities span ten business sectors including financial services oils construction labour provision and software development. Specifically 12 investigations or opportunities relate to businesses in the financial sector.

All of the investigations and opportunities sit across all HMRC customer groups from small business through to some of the UK’s largest organisations

The corporate criminal offence came into effect on 30 September 2017 and applies to organisations that failed prevent the facilitation of tax evasion from that date.

Noting that all businesses – large and small – are at risk...