Chancellor Philip Hammond says he will introduce “a tough new financial penalty” from July on financial professionals who “enable” a tax avoidance scheme that is later challenged and defeated by HMRC.

The Society for Trust and Estate Practitioners has urged the Government not to make advisers shy away from legitimate tax planning.

Plans to ensure that advisers pay large fines if they are found to be ‘enablers’ of tax avoidance have been blasted as “ludicrously draconian” and ill conceived.

The Government and HMRC have said that they are "taking further tough action to crack down on tax avoidance promoters". Read more...