
Britain has been criticised for its failure to prosecute tax evaders using HSBC’s Swiss arm. In March 2015, chancellor George Osborne was asked six times whether he had discussed the HSBC scandal with the bank’s former boss, Lord Green, before appointing him as a government minister.
He refused to answer each time and, according to The Mirror’s Jason Beattie, he ?also struggled to explain why”, since the government received these files in May 2010, only one person has been prosecuted out of 1,100 names. This has led to Margaret Hodge, who chaired the Public Accounts Committee investigation into the HSBC Swiss bank, calling Britain ?pathetic?. The latest French case ?has shown you can really take people to court over tax evasion and win,? she said.? A Paris court ordered Ricci, who was on the original list of 70 suspected tax evaders with accounts at HSBC Switzerland, to pay ?1m in fines and serve three years in jail, two of them suspended. Some two properties worth ?4m were confiscated. Ricci was accused of hiding $22m using offshore accounts in places such as Panama. The court called the evasion an ?exceptional threat to public order and the republican pact?.? Her daughter was also convicted of tax and given an eight-month suspended sentence. Read more about tax evasion:- 6 companies that avoid doing their taxes
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