New civil fraud procedures for tax cases

On 1 September HM Revenue and Customs began to operate a new ‘Code of Practice 9’ for cases of suspected serious tax fraud. Under the arrangements, which replace the ‘Hansard’ procedure, HMRC reserve the right to carry out criminal investigations. However, if the Commissioners decide to go down the civil route they will expressly not seek to prosecute the same offences – unless the taxpayer makes statements or provides documents that are “materially false” and “with intent to deceive” - and the need to conduct interviews under caution and tape record proceedings is removed.