Jerome Cahuzac, a cosmetic surgeon and former French budget minister tasked with cracking down on tax evasion, has been jailed for three years after he was found guilty of tax fraud and money laundering.
The gap between tax avoidance and evasion is disappearing and it is “immoral” to refer to it in the modern tax debate, said Richard Murphy, professor in practice in international political economy at City, University of London.
Financial advisers could be forced to report “aggressive” tax planning schemes which help clients avoid paying tax, according to new plans being considering by the European Commission.
Twenty-two wealthy individuals in the UK face civil and criminal investigations into suspected tax evasion following the disclosure of the Panama Papers, Britain’s chancellor Philip Hammond has told officials.
The UK government is fighting to keep Guernsey, Jersey and other British overseas territories off the EU’s planned blacklist of offshore tax havens.
A French prosecutor has called for HSBC to stand trial for helping clients hide more than €180bn (£161.3bn, $199.8bn) in offshore tax havens from the country’s tax authorities, French news agency AFP has reported.
The gap between between the amount of tax HM Revenue & Customs expected to collect in the last financial year and what it actually raised has fallen to its lowest ever level, and is now one of the smallest in the world.
A new data sharing agreement has officially come into force with the HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) expected to be handed the details of hundreds of thousands of offshore accounts on Friday as part of a move for wider transparency from the Isle of Man, Jersey, Guernsey and the Cayman Islands.
A new cache of 1.3 million documents from the Bahamas has exposed the use of offshore shell companies by the former EU competition commissioner Neelie Kroes and UK politician Amber Rudd.
The UK tax office has announced plans to increase the penalties on anyone who has not paid outstanding taxes from offshore investments ahead of the start of a new data sharing agreement with the crown dependencies and territories in October.
Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz and Swiss anti-corruption expert Mark Pieth have resigned from an international committee investigating offshore tax evasion due to government interference, it has been revealed.
Argentinean footballer Lionel Messi has been sentenced to 21 months in prison for tax fraud by a Spanish court after being found guilty of defrauding Spain of €4.1m (£3.5m, €4.6m) between 2007 and 2009.
