Tax amnesty: this is your LAST chance – no, really, I mean it…

November 27, 2009 3:09 pm by Lucy Warwick-Ching

When the HM Revenue & Customs said it was the ‘last chance’ for individuals to disclose their offshore investments, it made it clear that there would be no more opportunities. So today’s announcement that it will be extending the New Disclosure Opportunity by five weeks to January 4 is embarrassing. That ‘last chance’ was, apparently, the ‘second-to-last chance’. And this new ‘last chance’ really is the last… it really is, I mean it this time… 

HMRC is blaming the banks – saying that they have requested more time. But I suspect it is more to do with a less-than-enthusiastic response from individuals. Either that, or a lack of resources to investigate.

Now, HMRC is going to spend five weeks writing to individuals who hold offshore accounts. But this begs the question: why they didn’t go down the letters route in the first place, rather than relying on  low-key advertising?

Apart from a bizarre decision to use social networking to encourage us to come clean and some limited advertising in the press, (we carried some animated adverts on ft.com), there has not been the big awareness campaign that many expected. 

Let’s hope the taxman posts early for Christmas. It is thought that only 4,700 people have disclosed their holdings so far – a long way off the  30,000 HMRC was were hoping for. 

So check your letterbox, and check the personal finance pages of ft.com, where we’ll be posting more advice for offshore account holders.

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Lucy Warwick-Ching is the FT’s new Money Online Editor and has been a UK Companies reporter covering tobacco, pubs and leisure companies as well as the deputy editor on House and Home.

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Josephine Cumbo has written about all aspects of personal finance but currently specialises in insurance. She also covered company news for FT.com. Prior to working at the FT she was a news reporter for the ABC.

Tanya Powley is a personal finance reporter on FT Money specialising in mortgages and the housing market. Tanya joined FT Money in November 2009 after working in Australia covering personal finance for the Australian Financial Review and its sister magazine Asset. Prior to that, Tanya wrote about mortgages for UK trade newspaper Money Marketing.

Jonathan Eley is editor of Investors Chronicle, and has been with the title for ten years. Before that he worked for newswires and trade journals in London, New York and Hong Kong.

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