A 30-strong specialist unit to target entrepreneurs and other HNW individuals who use offshore accounts for tax avoidance and to hide assets...

A 30-strong specialist unit to target entrepreneurs and other HNW individuals who use offshore accounts for tax avoidance and to hide assets has been set up by the UK’s Inland Revenue. The unit, The Offshore Fraud Project, is part of the Revenue's Special Compliance Unit. The unit’s establishment is part of a crack down on rich abusers of the UK’s tax system by the new head of the Inland Revenue, David Varney, former chairman of telecoms group MMO2. It is thought that a number of on-going investigations could be concluded within months and in the most serious cases the individuals involved will face prosecution. Pressure is said to have been put on UK wealth managers to provide details of off-shore accounts along with UK credit card transactions connected to offshore accounts. An extra £66m was allocated to the Revenue in 2003 to recover an additional £1.6billion in tax over three years and fraud, avoidance and evasion has been high on the agenda as a result. This has extended to inheritance tax avoidance as a loophole that was used to avoid the disclosure of offshore trusts has now been closed.