The Inland Revenue has appointed 64 tax inspectors to investigate offshore trusts and companies in tax havens to locate unpaid tax. This will apparently be done by a specifically designed software package.
The tax inspectors have been appointed as a result of the Inland Revenue trying to clamp down on tax avoidance by UK residents.
In the last Budget, the Chancellor Gordon Brown said that he was throwing almost £70m to stop tax evasion and was looking to recover over £1.5bn over the next 3 years.
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Most people have read about the new Savings Directive where European countries must elect to either disclose information about investors or levy a withholding tax on interest. So far only the Isle of Man, Jersey and Guernsey have opted to keep investments secret and levy the tax instead.
Many industry commentators believe that Gordon Brown will take this directive to the limit because it is affecting the amount of revenue coming into the UK.
Many believe it could go as far as Mr Brown wanting full disclosure of all information from any UK dependant territory.