Deadline passes for disclosure deal

Friday 8th January 2010, 3:00PM GMT.

Martyn Scriven, secretary of the Jersey Bankers Association

ANY UK residents who did not meet a deadline to declare the contents of offshore bank accounts now face the prospect of immediate investigation for tax evasion.

But it is expected that very few Jersey account holders would have been among those rushing to tell HM Revenue & Customs that they had money secretly squirreled away here.

UK taxpayers were given until 5 January to disclose details of deposits in offshore accounts. A last-minute rush was reported in some jurisdictions, with offshore banks being asked to provide account details to clients.

The secretary of the Jersey Bankers Association, Martyn Scriven, said that there may well have been a rush for information in ‘secrecy jurisdictions’ like Switzerland and Liechtenstein. But he said that it was much less likely that Jersey account holders would be among those confessing to having withheld details of assets from HMRC.

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1
Arnald

January 9, 2010 at 8:16 pm

What would happen if such a measure was taken by every country who’s residents have business in Jersey?

If any precision about blatant criminality is not known by the industry itself within such a narrow scope as the UK, what chance that it exists for other countries?

What are those undisclosed ‘accounts’ doing?

Does anyone know?

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2
veritasjsy

January 10, 2010 at 2:11 am

Yes Mr Scriven, because as that Panorama episode showed, we are happy to circumvent the reasonable legislation from EU firms by shipping the interest to one of these periphery countries where we have paying agents etc. Not much better than the old sark lark if we are being honest. Excellence offshore, I dont think so.

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