High-risk tax avoidance schemes: black and white lists must avoid grey areas

The next step in dissuading those who may consider aggressive tax avoidance structures to be fair game has now been taken with a proposal that will ensure that it is not a zero-sum game.

The consultation on new tax avoidance ‘black lists’ proposes that HMRC will publish lists of schemes that they regard as representing unacceptable attempts at tax avoidance which they believe are unlikely to be effective.

The range of taxes will encompass all those taxes at present within the DOTAS rules and taxpayers will therefore potentially need to report both that a scheme is one reportable under DOTAS (the scheme reference number) and listed.

Removing the cashflow advantage

In a system expected to operate similarly to one already operating successfully in the USA the...