Main Article:
Grey matters
Daniel N. Erasmus, Let’s hope the new OECD guidelines on money laundering will not create more unnecessary tax auditing, available at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1486429
Abstract
The OECD has just released guidelines to tax administrators and other authorities of what to look out for in uncovering money laundering transactions. Although the guidelines are useful, many authorities will misapply the recommendations in arriving at conclusions that are not supported by fact, simply because a set of facts appear suspicious. Tact and care should be exercised and remembered that in adversarial systems of law an accused is only guilty when proven with fact to be guilty and not by conjecture. The paper sets out the process tax payers should follow when faced by a tax audit, especially where the audit is triggered by the tax authorities suspicion emanating from the broad parameters set out in the OECD guidelines.
CFR comment
This short (12 page) paper by an adjunct professor in international tax planning and tax risk management at the Thomas Jefferson School of Law in San Diego and CEO of Tax Risk Management Services sets out an outline of how to argue to limit an investigation under the OECD’s new AML guidelines. Erasmus has a number of recent postings on SSRN on international tax issues and blogs at http://www.dnerasmus.com/Blog.aspx.