Eleven live corporate criminal offence investigations in progress

As at 1 January 2024 HMRC had 11 live investigations into corporate criminal offences of the failure to prevent the facilitation of tax evasion - no charging decisions have yet been made.

In a freedom of information release HMRC reveals it has a further 24 live opportunities under review and that it has - to date - rejected another 94.

The investigations and opportunities span ten different business sectors and ‘sit across all HMRC customer groups’ including software providers labour provision accountancy and legal services and transport.

HMRC states that it has ‘always been clear that these numbers will go up and down as part of the normal criminal investigation process - not every opportunity will lead to an investigation and not every investigation will lead to a charge’.

In some cases following investigation HMRC has been satisfied with explanations provided and has not...