In the wake of the ‘Panama Papers’ disclosures, thewealthworks had a fantastic response to a seminar designed to bring UK trust practitioners up to date with the latest reporting requirements.
The fully booked event, which was held at the Grand Connaught Rooms in central London, was hosted by wealth management software developer thewealthworks and led by Gill Steel, owner and director of LawSkills Ltd.
Delegates were apprised of the possible sources of terrorist funding including an explanation of the UN Convention on financing terrorism; preventing tax evasion and the role of tax havens; and tax information exchange regimes including Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), Crown Dependencies & Gibraltar regulations (CDOTs), Common Reporting Standard (CRS) and the EU Directive on administrative co-operation in tax matters (DAC).
There was also an explanation of the 4th Anti- Money Laundering Directive (4th AML) and the requirement to register a ‘Legal Entity Identifier’, a system introduced to reduce the risk of dodgy money entering the financial markets which requires every ‘legal entity’ to register and obtain a unique identification number before it can trade on financial markets
Gill Steel said: “For years it was legal to organise one’s affairs so as to pay the minimum amount of tax – this was tax planning. Then it became known that some devices were evading the payment of tax legitimately due, and governments around the world took steps to preserve their tax by outlawing tax evasion. Somewhere in between hovers tax avoidance which is seen as morally wrong but not necessarily illegal.”
What followed was a very detailed account of how governments have ratcheted up their tax reporting requirements putting new and increasing pressure on trust practitioners in particular.
Mick Jones, Managing Director of thewealthworks, commented: “The aim of this seminar was to update trust practitioners with developments in the new transparent world of disclosure of trusts to revenue authorities both in compliance with EU law and international agreement.
“Gill’s presentation was brilliantly comprehensive and not a little frightening for trust practitioners concerned with the very far reaching compliance measures that are required now and in the future and the significant dates they will need to look out for.
“The feedback was excellent and we took the opportunity of showcasing our wealth management system, for private client practitioners which supports FATCA, CRS and other reporting requirements.”
