Elite unit targets significant tax fraud cases

HMRC’s ‘offshore corporate and wealthy’ unit (OCW) opened criminal investigations into 25 individuals over suspected serious criminal tax frauds last year according to information obtained by Pinsent Masons in response to a freedom of information request.

Over the past ten years HMRC’s approach to economic crime enforcement has evolved to focus on the largest and most complex cases of tax fraud. The data reveals that in 2009-10 HMRC undertook just 165 prosecutions protecting approximately £150m in tax revenue. But although by 2019-20 the number of prosecutions had risen almost fourfold to 573 the revenue protected had increased 33-fold to approximately £5bn.

Andrew Sackey partner at Pinsent Masons and former head of the OCW said: The OCW is aiming to secure prosecutions against corporates or wealthy individuals whose deliberate actions are believed to have defrauded the public purse of hundreds of...