The Criminal Finances Act 2017 (c. 22) is an Act of the

Parliament of the United Kingdom The Parliament of the United Kingdom is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at the Palace of Westminster, London. It alone possesses legislative suprem ...

that amends the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 to expand the provisions for confiscating funds to deal with

terrorist Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of criminal violence to provoke a state of terror or fear, mostly with the intention to achieve political or religious aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violen ...

property and proceeds of

tax evasion Tax evasion is an illegal attempt to defeat the imposition of taxes by individuals, corporations, trusts, and others. Tax evasion often entails the deliberate misrepresentation of the taxpayer's affairs to the tax authorities to reduce the tax ...

. The Act received

Royal Assent Royal assent is the method by which a monarch formally approves an act of the legislature, either directly or through an official acting on the monarch's behalf. In some jurisdictions, royal assent is equivalent to promulgation, while in oth ...

on 27 April 2017. According to its long title, the purpose of the Act is to: Part 3 of the Act creates the corporate offences of failure of a company or partnership to prevent facilitation of UK tax evasion and failure to prevent facilitation of foreign tax evasion offences. Technically these are two distinct offences, depending on whether the tax which is evaded is UK taxation or foreign taxation. Companies and partnerships are required to take 'reasonable' action to prevent the facilitation of tax evasion and

Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs , patch = , patchcaption = , logo = HM Revenue & Customs.svg , logocaption = , badge = , badgecaption = , flag = , flagcaption = , image_size = , co ...

(HMRC), who are responsible for implementation of the legislation, argues that "the procedures that are considered ''reasonable'' will change as time passes". Hong Kong-based law firm, King & Wood Mallesons, has described the Act as "a highly effective piece of legislation".

Applications

The Act was invoked, less than two weeks after its provisions on " unexplained wealth orders" came into force on 31 January 2018, to freeze £22 million of assets belonging to an unnamed oligarch.

References

United Kingdom Acts of Parliament 2017 Tax legislation in the United Kingdom Tax evasion in the United Kingdom 2017 in economics Magnitsky Act {{finance-stub