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A UK tax expert has suggested that the poor response to the recent HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) tax amnesty was due to the fact that many investors did not know about it.
Alan McCann, director of tax at accountancy and advisory firm DTE, explained that banks in the UK must bear some of the responsibility.
HMRC extracted details of customer offshore bank accounts they wished to investigate from banks including Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds TSB and others.
However, it was up to the banks to inform their customers about the amnesty - and it has been suggested that many investors did not receive this information.
Around 50,000 of the 400,000 people targeted finally took advantage of the amnesty before the June 22nd deadline. This followed the sending of a last-minute reminder letter by HMRC to around 200,000 of those concerned.
Mr McCann warned investors involved in offshore banking, who have not yet disclosed tax, that there is no way out.
He explained: "HMRC has the names and account numbers of all 400,000 investors potentially affected.
"They will sift their way through the entire pile, even if it takes years - and they will certainly go after the people they believe havent made a disclosure.
"If you need to make such a disclosure, you should do so as soon as possible. The situation will not be as good as the amnesty, but it will be better than sticking your head in the sand and being held to account several months, or even years down the line."
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