Corporate Criminal Offence – Is your business compliant?

The Corporate Criminal Offence (CCO) legislation was introduced in September 2017 to help prevent the facilitation of tax evasion within businesses.

The legislation holds companies and partnerships to account if anyone acting on their behalf helps to facilitate tax evasion.

Facilitating tax evasion is a criminal offence and is subject to sanctions.

All companies and partnerships, no matter the size or services provided, must comply with the CCO legislation. If there is a chance anyone associated with the relevant body has facilitated tax fraud, through their actions, they will come into the scope of the legislation.

The Corporate Criminal Offence is therefore a very important piece of legislation for businesses to be aware of.

There are three stages to committing an offence under the CCO

Stage 1 – Fraudulent Evasion of Tax – Where a person has deliberately deceived or defrauded the public revenue and knowingly not paid their true tax liability under the law

Stage 2 – Facilitation of Tax Evasion – A representative (employee or associated person) fraudulently facilitates tax evasion

Stage 3 – Failure to Prevent the Facilitation Act – A relevant body has failed to put preventative measures and systems in place

Where a company or partnership is found to have committed an offence under the CCO legislation, they could be subject to sanctions such as unlimited fines and deferred prosecution orders. There is also a potential risk of serious reputational damage, as any convictions will be placed on public record.

The only defence against CCO is for the relevant body to ensure that it has put in place appropriate preventive measures

HMRC states in its guidance that the prevention measures that are introduced should be informed by the following six principles:

Risk assessment Proportionality of risk-based prevention procedures Top level commitment Due diligence Communication and training Monitoring and review

How can we help?

At STS (Europe) we offer training courses for senior management and all other relevant employees to make staff aware of the legislation and how they can follow best practice. Our training course is an essential part in creating a defence against the Corporate Criminal Offence.

Our training platform is currently being used by:

Global Banks Global Trust Providers International Law Firm

If your company does not have CCO training in place, get in touch with us for an initial consultation.

Call us on 01704 891676

Email us at [email protected]