Firms Who Aid And Abet Tax Evaders Face Fines

Banks and accountants who help people dodge tax will face fines equal to the amount owed, under tough new measures.

Chief Secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander told Sky News the Government wanted to send the message that "dodging and evading tax is simply unacceptable".

Under the measures firms that assist people or other firms to evade tax by "hiding" their money will be fined precisely the amount they helped people to evade.

It means the Government would get the money back from both the person who evaded the tax, and the firm that helped them to do so.

Mr Alexander will formally announce the measures, which were left over from the Budget for him to give details on, this morning but disclosed them to Sky News this morning.

He said: "In future if a bank or an accountancy firm help you evade tax they will be liable for a financial penalty the same as the tax that they encourage you to evade.

"This is all part of the Liberal Democrat-led clampdown on avoidance and evasion that has gone on for the whole of the parliament."

He added: "We need to send a strong message that dodging and evading tax is simply unacceptable."

Mr Alexander will announce the new Government measures on tax evasion after he unveils a "Lib Dem Budget" in which he will use an unprecedented alternative fiscal statement in the Commons to say that deficit reduction needs to happen more fairly than proposed by the Chancellor.

He is even going to have a yellow box as a Lib Dem alternative to Mr Osborne's red one.

The Lib Dem leader, Nick Clegg, said £6bn of the £27bn needed to balance the books should be found from an increase in tax - mainly for the richest in society.

Speaking on his LBC radio show Call Clegg, he said: "Over the last five years, we have basically taken a mixture of tax increases and spending reductions, welfare reductions, action on tax avoidance, to start balancing the books. That's allowed us to halve the deficit as a proportion of our nation's wealth.

"The Conservatives announced last autumn that they are going to lurch away from that and only nobble the working-age poor and only the working-age poor will make additional sacrifices to balance the books.

"I don't think that's fair, I don't think it's right to ask for £1,500 off the eight million poorest families in this country, which is what the Conservatives want to do."