Two new criminal offences and higher penalties are to be created under a new regime to crack down on offshore evaders, Chief Secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander announced today.
He said: "Tax evasion is a crime like any other. If people help a burglar, they are accomplices and criminals too. Now it will be the same for those that help tax evaders."

{desktop}{/desktop}{mobile}{/mobile}

Mr Alexander called on the tax and accountancy professional regulatory bodies who police professional standards to maximise their role in setting and enforcing clear standards around enabling and promoting avoidance. Mr Alexander unveiled plans to:

• introduce a new strict liability criminal offence for offshore evasion – so in the worst cases it's no longer possible to plead ignorance in an attempt to avoid criminal prosecution
• make it a criminal offence for corporates to fail to prevent tax evasion or the facilitation of tax evasion on their watch
• increase the financial penalties faced by evaders – including, for the first time, linking the penalty to value of the asset kept in an offshore bank account
• introduce new civil penalties on those who enable evasion so they will face the same penalty as the tax evader
• publicly name and shame both evaders and those who enable evasion

Mr Alexander said: "As well as action to crack down on offshore tax evaders through a tough new disclosure scheme, the Budget included new penalties and reporting requirements to tackle persistent tax avoiders.
"I have made a great deal of progress in shutting down those loopholes and clamping down on aggressive avoidance and evasion. I have authorised over £1 billion of investment in HMRC to ensure they have the tools to do their job. There has been a quadrupling of criminal prosecutions, and a dramatic rise in taxes collected.
"But now I am announcing that we are going even further. We're making it a crime if companies fail to put in place measures to stop economic crime happening in their organisations. We're also making sure that the penalties on those that facilitate evasion are large enough to punish and deter."
The Government said over the course of this Parliament, as a result of actions taken to tackle evasion, avoidance and non-compliance, HMRC will have secured £100 billion in additional revenue.
This includes more than £31 billion from big businesses, and an extra £1.2 billion from the UK's 6,000 richest people, who each have a net worth of £20 million or more.