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Finance Bill

They key benefit of the changes we are making lies in providing to Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs earlier information about the kind of schemes that people are being provided with. We are confident that if we have that information earlier, we will be able to address those schemes more effectively and so bear down on the scale of the problem. In last year's presidency of the G20, we led the global clampdown on tax havens and offshore evasion. I am pleased that since the G20 summit in London last April, more tax information exchange agreements have been signed around the world than in the whole of the previous decade. Clause 36 sets higher penalties, up to 200 per cent. of the tax due, for those who fail to declare income and gains from jurisdictions that do not exchange information automatically with the UK.