The Financial Times reports (30/04/2013) that five individuals face charges at Birmingham Magistrates Court next month. It is alleged that they falsely claimed the value of allowable losses and defrauded investors through false accounting documents.
This is yet another example of the vortex that both investment advisors and investors currently find themselves, as a result of renewed focus on criminal prosecutions by HMRC and CPS. They have promised to increase prosecutions to 1,500 per annum by 2014.
Film tax partnerships have always been complicated, delicate investment arrangements. Each one is arranged differently and they have attracted the interest of HMRC since 2002.
They have not followed a consistent approach to these types of partnership arrangements, sanctioning some immediately and then changing their minds at a later date. Each year investors would face a yearly HMRC inquiry.
Even now, not every tax partnership has fallen either at the first hurdle or at tribunal level.
We are currently advising individuals facing a variety of investigations by HRMC, including criminal investigations.
We are one of the few firms that can offer a multi disciplinary approach to these issues. We have teams of both serious fraud defence and tax experts, all highly rated in: Chambers UK; Legal 500 and Superlawyers UK.
We have over thirty years experience of successfully defending serious fraud and tax fraud investigations/prosecutions.
Our highly skilled, experienced approach is pro-active, robust and rigorous and it produces consistently excellent results. Please see our news and cases sections on the website for some examples of our recent instructions and results, and our tax and serious fraud departmental sections which gives a full flavour of the services that we offer.
If you need advice on any if the issues raised in this piece: please contact JEFFREY LEWIS; SIOBHAIN EGAN; MILES HERMAN; KEITH WOOD.
