If you know anyone who has income or assets overseas, now is the time to remind them to make sure their books are in order.

Under HMRC’s Requirement to Correct legislation which came into force in 2017, anyone who has offshore tax liabilities is under an obligation to declare them to the Government by 30^th September, or else face serious new penalties.

Under the legislation, if you are found with undeclared offshore tax liabilities, you will be liable for a penalty of at least double the tax owed, with the maximum potential penalty being up to 10% of the value of all assets involved. However, HMRC has stated that “the new FTC penalty is likely to be much higher than existing penalties”, meaning the Government will likely be taking a much tougher stance on non-compliance and penalties could become even more punishing in future.

This will clearly not affect everything, but with the deadline looming at the end of this week, now is the time to make sure your friends and colleagues are in the know about their reporting requirements, to avoid a costly punishment.

If you want to know more about this do get in touch, after all we love tax.

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