Offshore accounts: taxman on the prowl (Part 2)

Remember the offshore disclosure facility set up by the taxman earlier in the year? I blogged about it here. To recap, the taxman got a court order forcing five high street banks to disclose details of its offshore account holders. The aim was for the taxman to look through those records in order to discover any undeclared income that should have been charged to UK tax. The taxman then extended an amnesty of sorts to all such account holders, giving them until 22 June to declare if they wanted to confess, and then up until 26 November 2007 to make a full declaration of any unpaid tax. The late payment penalty is being reduced in such cases, from a possible 100 per cent, to 10 per cent. However, all the back tax owing must be paid, as well as interest.

Anyway, following on from that, the taxman has decided to spread his net further. He has received gratefully the information given by the five banks, and now would like some more from other banks and financial institutions. To this end, he is attending a meeting today with 170 banks and financial institutions. The meeting is being described as 'exploratory'. The taxman would like to discuss possible areas of co-operation with the institutions. Based on what he learns from today's meeting, we may be seeing another 'not-quite-amnesty' pretty soon.