The Revenue and Customs Prosecution Office (RCPO) was a

non-departmental public body In the United Kingdom, non-departmental public body (NDPB) is a classification applied by the Cabinet Office, Treasury, the Scottish Government and the Northern Ireland Executive to public sector organisations that have a role in the process of n ...

created under the

Commissioners for Revenue and Customs Act 2005 The Commissioners for Revenue and Customs Act 2005 (c 11) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which combined the Inland Revenue and HM Customs and Excise into a single government department, HM Revenue and Customs. The Act also e ...

as an independent prosecution body to take responsibility in the

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the Wales–England border, east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the ...

and

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label= Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is variously described as a country, province or region. Nort ...

for the

prosecution A prosecutor is a legal representative of the prosecution in states with either the common law adversarial system or the Civil law (legal system), civil law inquisitorial system. The prosecution is the legal party responsible for presenting the ...

criminal offence In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a state or other authority. The term ''crime'' does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition,Farmer, Lindsay: "Crime, definitions of", in Can ...

s in cases previously within the purview of the

Inland Revenue The Inland Revenue was, until April 2005, a department of the British Government responsible for the collection of direct taxation, including income tax, national insurance contributions, capital gains tax, inheritance tax, corporation t ...

and

HM Customs and Excise HM Customs and Excise (properly known as Her Majesty's Customs and Excise at the time of its dissolution) was a department of the British Government formed in 1909 by the merger of HM Customs and HM Excise; its primary responsibility was the ...

(HMCE). In

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

it was a Specialist Reporting Agency and the cases are then prosecuted by the

Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service The Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service is the independent public prosecution service for Scotland, and is a Ministerial Department of the Scottish Government. The department is headed by His Majesty's Lord Advocate, who under the ...

. It was merged with the

Crown Prosecution Service The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) is the principal public agency for conducting criminal prosecutions in England and Wales. It is headed by the Director of Public Prosecutions. The main responsibilities of the CPS are to provide legal adv ...

on 1 January 2010.

History

An increase in the independence of prosecutors from the compliance and investigation staff at the revenue departments was recommended by the Gower-Hammond Report in December 2000 and the

Butterfield report Butterfield may refer to: * Butterfield (surname) * Butterfield Market Places * Butterfield, Dublin, a suburb and townland of Dublin, Ireland * Butterfield Green, Luton, England United States * Butterfield, Minnesota * Butterfield, Missouri ...

in July 2003 following recent scandals and failed prosecutions, including the collapse of the London City Bond trial for evasion of tens of millions of pounds of

excise duties file:Lincoln Beer Stamp 1871.JPG, upright=1.2, 1871 U.S. Revenue stamp for 1/6 barrel of beer. Brewers would receive the stamp sheets, cut them into individual stamps, cancel them, and paste them over the Bunghole, bung of the beer barrel so when ...

as a result of the non-disclosure of the involvement of an unpaid Customs informant. The RCPO was established on 18 April 2005, and was independent of

HM Revenue and Customs HM Revenue and Customs (His Majesty's Revenue and Customs, or HMRC) is a non-ministerial government department, non-ministerial Departments of the United Kingdom Government, department of the His Majesty's Government, UK Government responsible fo ...

(the new government department also created on 18 April 2005 under the Commissioners for Revenue and Customs Act 2005 by the merger of the Inland Revenue and HMCE). A memorandum of understanding laid out the boundaries between the work of the RCPO and HMRC. The RCPO is superintended by the

Attorney General In most common law jurisdictions, the attorney general or attorney-general (sometimes abbreviated AG or Atty.-Gen) is the main legal advisor to the government. The plural is attorneys general. In some jurisdictions, attorneys general also have exec ...

, and

David Green David (; , "beloved one") (traditional spelling), , ''Dāwūd''; grc-koi, Δαυΐδ, Dauíd; la, Davidus, David; gez , ዳዊት, ''Dawit''; xcl, Դաւիթ, ''Dawitʿ''; cu, Давíдъ, ''Davidŭ''; possibly meaning "beloved one". w ...

QC was appointed as the first Director of the Customs and Excise Prosecutions in December 2004. RCPO coordinated its efforts with those of the

(CPS) and, from its inception in April 2006, the

Serious Organised Crime Agency The Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) was a non-departmental public body of the Government of the United Kingdom which existed from 1 April 2006 until 7 October 2013. SOCA was a national law enforcement agency with Home Office sponsorship ...

(SOCA). In its first year, to April 2006, it dealt with over 1700 cases, with over 75% guilty pleas and convictions in 90% of cases; obtained 411 confiscation orders, for a total of £36,617,204, of which £21,167,236 was collected by 11 April 2006. On 11 April 2006, it had 255 staff, including 80 lawyers, and an annual budget of £35.6 million. Following an announcement by the Attorney General in April 2009, on 1 January 2010 the RCPO was merged with the Crown Prosecution Service, forming a new Revenue and Customs Division within the CPS, with the Director of Public Prosecution (DPP), Keir Starmer, additionally being appointed to the statutory position of Director of Revenue and Customs Prosecutions. That office was abolished and merged with the office of DPP on 27 March 2014.Public Bodies (Merger of the Director of Public Prosecutions and the Director of Revenue and Customs Prosecutions) Order 2014
/ref>

Organisation

RCPO was created by the

, as an independent prosecuting authority similar to the Crown Prosecution Service, but primarily prosecuting cases investigated by HM Revenue and Customs. Although RCPO began work when the CRC Act came into force in April 2005, its prosecutors were initially drawn from the merger of the Customs & Excise Prosecutions Office (CEPO) (which was itself established in 2003 from the previous HM Customs and Excise Solicitors' Office) and the Inland Revenue Crime Group. It had approximately 290 staff, including around 80 lawyers, based at New King's Beam House in

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

SE1 and Ralli Quays in

Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...

. The RCPO equivalent to CPS Crown Prosecutors were called "Revenue and Customs Prosecutors". The RCPO handled approximately 2,500 cases each year. In its first six months, RCPO concluded 858 cases with convictions in 88% of them. It dealt with cases of fraud in relation to

direct tax Although the actual definitions vary between jurisdictions, in general, a direct tax or income tax is a tax imposed upon a person or property as distinct from a tax imposed upon a transaction, which is described as an indirect tax. There is a dis ...

es (

income tax An income tax is a tax imposed on individuals or entities (taxpayers) in respect of the income or profits earned by them (commonly called taxable income). Income tax generally is computed as the product of a tax rate times the taxable income. Tax ...

capital gains tax A capital gains tax (CGT) is the tax on profits realized on the sale of a non-inventory asset. The most common capital gains are realized from the sale of stocks, Bond (finance), bonds, precious metals, real estate, and property. Not all count ...

, inheritance tax,

corporation tax A corporate tax, also called corporation tax or company tax, is a direct tax imposed on the income or capital of corporations or analogous legal entities. Many countries impose such taxes at the national level, and a similar tax may be imposed a ...

) and

indirect tax An indirect tax (such as sales tax, per unit tax, value added tax (VAT), or goods and services tax (GST), excise, consumption tax, tariff) is a tax that is levied upon goods and services before they reach the customer who ultimately pays the i ...

es (mainly

VAT A value-added tax (VAT), known in some countries as a goods and services tax (GST), is a type of tax that is assessed incrementally. It is levied on the price of a product or service at each stage of production, distribution, or sale to the en ...

– notably multimillion-pound Missing Trader Intra-Community ("carousel") frauds),

tax credit A tax credit is a tax incentive which allows certain taxpayers to subtract the amount of the credit they have accrued from the total they owe the state. It may also be a credit granted in recognition of taxes already paid or a form of state "dis ...

drug smuggling The illegal drug trade or drug trafficking is a global black market dedicated to the cultivation, manufacture, distribution and sale of prohibited drugs. Most jurisdictions prohibit trade, except under license, of many types of drugs through ...

, and

money laundering Money laundering is the process of concealing the origin of money, obtained from illicit activities such as drug trafficking, corruption, embezzlement or gambling, by converting it into a legitimate source. It is a crime in many jurisdictions ...

, cases involving United Nations trade sanctions,

conflict diamonds ''Blood Diamond'' is a 2006 American political war action thriller film directed and co-produced by Edward Zwick and starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Connelly, and Djimon Hounsou. The title refers to blood diamonds, which are diamonds mi ...

and

CITES CITES (shorter name for the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, also known as the Washington Convention) is a multilateral treaty to protect endangered plants and animals from the threats of interna ...

. The majority of cases involved drug trafficking prosecutions.

References

*''Introducing RCPO'', David Green QC, ''

Tax Journal ''Tax Journal'' is a weekly magazine relating to business taxation in the United Kingdom published by LexisNexis LexisNexis is a part of the RELX corporation that sells data analytics products and various databases that are accessed through o ...

'', 21 November 2005
Revenue and Customs Prosecutions Office marks first year successes
RCPO press release PN06/0002, 11 April 2006

External links

RCPO website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Revenue And Customs Prosecutions Office Defunct non-departmental public bodies of the United Kingdom government HM Revenue and Customs 2005 establishments in the United Kingdom 2010 disestablishments in the United Kingdom