Advisers must alert HMRC about complex offshore financial arrangements

HMRC plans to toughen its stance on businesses, agents and tax advisers who enable tax avoidance schemes, and is consulting on a new legal requirement under which intermediaries would have to notify HMRC of the creation of certain complex offshore financial arrangements and provide a list of clients using them.

The consultation establishes the high level design principles for the measure, which HMRC says is targeting arrangements that could easily be used for tax evasion purposes.