Over the last decades, the world has witnessed increasingly sophisticated financial crimes being perpetrated across borders – and the public interest in addressing such issues has also grown, as has been evidenced in the media through widely publicised leaks such as the Panama and Paradise Papers (ICIJ, 2020[1]). These crimes are often facilitated by lawyers, accountants, financial institutions and other professionals who help engineer the legal and financial structures seen in complex tax evasion and financial crimes. The small segment of professionals that generate opportunities to facilitate the commission and / or concealment of such crimes undermine not only the rule of law, but their own profession, public confidence in the legal and financial system, as well as the level playing field between compliant and non-compliant taxpayers. Ultimately, this undermines the public interest in ensuring taxes are paid and available for public use. Therefore, targeting professional enablers and disrupting their activities is a key avenue for addressing criminal activity at the source. The majority of professionals are law-abiding and play an important role in assisting businesses and individuals to understand and comply with the law and helping the financial system run smoothly. Such law-abiding professionals are to be differentiated from a small set of professionals who use their skills and knowledge of the law to actively promote, market and facilitate the commission of crimes by their clients. This report seeks to support policy makers and law enforcement authorities to address the actions of that small set of lawyers, tax advisors, notaries, financial institutions and other intermediaries that are “professional enablers,” intent on facilitating wrong-doing by their clients. Professional enablers play an integral role in making it easier for taxpayers to defraud the government and evade their tax obligations, such as by offering non-transparent structures and schemes to conceal the true identity of the individuals behind the illegal activities undertaken. This type of activity has become a subject of international and domestic political significance and been covered extensively in the media. These scandals also reveal the broader problem of tax evasion in society: that it undermines public confidence as well as the public purse, and gives rise to an increasing sense of instability caused by inequality. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, emerging risks continue to come to light, such as the potential role of professional enablers in perpetrating fraudulent access to pandemic support funding. This highlights the persistent risk professional enablers create in society. Governments have therefore recognised the need to target the professional enablers who actively pursue opportunities for, and conceal the commission of, tax crimes and other financial crimes, in order to disrupt a crucial part of the planning and pursuit of criminal activity. This is not the only strategy that is needed to address all tax and financial crimes; however, it is one that can be cost-effective by reducing the accessibility of sophisticated means of tax evasion and fraud, thereby narrowing the opportunities for such crimes to take place Countries have reported, however, that while they recognise the importance of the issue, there are challenges in being able to effectively tackle professional enablers. This report explores different governmental strategies to detect, deter and disrupt the activities of professional enablers. This report This report sets out actions governments can take to address the issue of professional enablers in five key areas: 1. Understanding the role of professional enablers; 2. Methods for identifying professional enablers; 3. Legal and regulatory frameworks to disrupt professional enablers; 4. Strategies for deterring professional enablers; and 5. Domestic and international multilateral efforts to address professional enablers. While professional enablers include a wide range of individuals, intermediaries and institutions providing an array of services that may vary in specifics from one country to another, this report highlights the common approaches used in combatting the use of professional enablers. This report is primarily targeted at authorities with responsibility over tax crimes, but it is also intended to be helpful to other law enforcement authorities, given the links between tax offences and other financial crimes such as money laundering or corruption and the commonalities in the ways these crimes are committed, and particularly insofar as it outlines the importance of multi-agency and multilateral action. This report has been prepared by the OECD Task Force on Tax Crimes and Other Crimes, drawing on the experience of both OECD and non-OECD member countries.
OECD (2021), Ending the Shell Game: Cracking down on the Professionals who enable Tax and White Collar Crimes, OECD Publishing, Paris.
http://www.oecd.org/tax/crime/ending-the-shell-game-cracking-down-on-the-professionals-who-enable-tax-and-white-collarcrimes.htm