OECD sets out five-point action plan on tax crime

The latest OECD forum on tax and crime, hosted in London by HMRC, has identified five priority areas for action. These include:

• ensuring professional enablers play their part in tackling tax crime;
• increasing the level of inter-agency co-operation across governments;
• implementing OECD’s ‘ten global principles’;
• improving international co-operation through effective sharing of intelligence and data; and
• building capacity to investigate tax crimes, including developing countries.

‘Tax evasion is a serious issue’, said Simon York, director of HMRC’s fraud investigation service. ‘As well as the harm it causes to society we know that it is closely linked to money-laundering, organised crime, corruption and terrorist financing’.

‘Financial crimes affect countries around the world’, said Grace Perez-Navarro, deputy director of the OECD’s centre for tax policy and administration. ‘The most effective response is partnership. Partnership between countries, partnership across different parts of government, and partnerships between policy-makers and operational leaders’.

See http://bit.ly/2AvVcK7.