Criminal Finances Act Statement

As part of the government’s focus on reducing tax evasion, it has introduced a new criminal offence for organisations that fail to prevent the facilitation of tax evasion.

The legislation makes a firm criminally liable if it does not do enough to prevent its employees, contractors or any associated persons facilitating tax evasion by a taxpayer, for example a client, customer or supplier; this applies to all taxes and all firms irrespective of their size or industry sector.

The new rules, under the Criminal Finances Act 2017, were effective from 30 September 2017 and Crowe UK is taking action to ensure we fully comply with them, so as to protect us against a criminal investigation. A successful prosecution of the firm could lead to an unlimited fine as well as an unwelcome public record and significant reputational damage.

Our expectation

Crowe’s Executive Team is strongly supportive of this legislation. It is made clear to all of our people, and all those working on its behalf, that the Executive Team will take the strongest possible action against anyone found to be helping the evasion of taxes.

Crowe has shown its integrity over many years and its people have worked hard to build a successful firm. Together we aim to ensure that this progress is not put at risk.