An audit, tax and advisory firm has warned that too few accountants are telling clients about the Liechtenstein Disclosure Facility and its end-December deadline.

Persons with bank accounts held in Liechtenstein need to regularise their accounts by the end of this year, a tax, audit and advisory firm says while complaining that the UK government should be making more noise about its disclosure campaigns.

The Liechtenstein Disclosure Facility, stemming from a pact originally signed between the UK and the tiny European state in August 2009, has, after a number of timetable adjustments, been given a termination date of end-December this year. Under the LDF’s terms, it allows individuals, companies or other entities such as trusts to regularise their UK tax affairs. They can draw a line under such matters by paying a 10 per cent fixed penalty rather than up to 200 per cent on the unpaid liabilities for periods to 5 April 2009, and the look-back period only goes as far as 1999. The facility is available to those with offshore undeclared tax as of 2009 who establish what is, or has been, an appropriate connection to Liechtenstein. The taxpayer must not be under an existing investigation. 

The LDF has been cited as one of the more efficient and workable disclosure pacts.

However, far too few advisors in the UK are aware of the deadline, according to Crowe Clark Whitehill, in a recent research report. It says that only 19 per cent of accountants have told all their clients about the LDF, suggesting that as autumn gets under way, there is only a small window of opportunity left to them.

Asked if the UK government and tax authority could have run a louder, more visible campaign on the LDF, John Cassidy, tax investigations partner at Crowe Clark Whitehill, told WealthBriefing: “They have relied very much on people like me and my opposite numbers to get the word out. It was a ripple effect – they should have done a lot more.”