Multinationals may face ‘unmanageably onerous obligations’ to prevent tax evasion due to the global scale of the Criminal Finances Act, say lawyers at QEB Hollis Whiteman Chambers in an article in NLJ this week.
They highlight that the sanctions are now criminal as well as regulatory in nature, consider what they mean in practice and examine how they sit with parallel criminal civil and regulatory provisions.
Prosecutors will also face difficulties in proving the new failure to prevent offences, and in distinguishing facilitation of tax evasion from aggressive tax avoidance.
