Are the UK Tax Authorities Targeting Offshore Cards?

Stephen Harris

22 June 2005

The UK’s newly-merged tax collection and customs authority, HM Revenue and Customs, is to demand UK credit card providers to provide it with credit and debit card details of around 30,000 people in the UK thought to be using undeclared offshore accounts to evade tax, according to a report in The Sunday Times. The tax authority refused to confirm this, telling the paper that: "It is known that there are a variety of ways in which people try to hide money offshore. We will continue to ensure that everyone who is liable pays the correct tax, and hiding money offshore is not acceptable. We cannot comment on which areas we are targeting, because that would warn off the people we are trying to identify." The Sunday Times contacted several banks who confirmed that had such a request been made they would have provided such information via a “production order”. They all denied that such an approach had taken place though.