28 Jan PROTAX conference report

On 22 November 2019 PROTAX convened experts and end-user stakeholders in Brussels in the Enhancing the investigation, prosecution and prevention of tax crimes in the EU conference

The conference offered the opportunity to discuss a range of issues pertaining to tax crime in the EU and internationally, and to explore solutions and collaborations developed by PROTAX to combat it.

The conference report is available here.

The conference was a follow-up to focus groups convened in 10 Member States earlier this year as part of the EU-funded PROTAX project. The focus groups involved tax authorities, financial investigation units, accountants, tax lawyers, governmental authorities. They focused on:

• how tax crime is defined in each country (if it was defined)
• who investigated such crime
• who prosecuted it
• which crimes were the subject of FIU investigation
• the success rate
• the resources available to FIUs
• the challenges they face
• their recommendations for improving the success rate and for minimising such crime

Contributors included OLAF, OECD and Europol, as well as the LEAs involved in the PROTAX focus groups, PROTAX consortium partners and the advisory board members, and academic experts in tax crimes.

Issues discussed included inter alia, volume and frequency of VAT fraud, prosecution successes, protection for whistleblowers and new technological tools to improve data sharing.

For more information, please view the conference report in which we provide a concise account of the day’s presentations and discussion.

For more information contact us.