Limerick University begins European tax evasion project

Investigating tax and evasion in the European Union is the subject of a new project researchers at the University of Limerick are embarking upon.

The €5 million Horizon 2020 COFFERS project (Combating Fiscal Fraud and Empowering Regulators) will involve researchers in Ireland, UK, Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, Turkey and the Czech Republic, and will seek to discover how much tax revenue is being lost through avoidance and evasion.

The team at the Kemmy Business School in Limerick are focusing on the role of expert professional networks, tax advisers, wealth managers and the factors which can lead them to take ethical or aggressive approaches to their tax work.

Large-scale plan

According to Prof Sheila Killian of UL Kemmy Business School, researchers have in the past sought to address this problem in various single jurisdictions, but rarely in a large-scale internationally co-ordinated work plan.

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“The COFFERS Horizon 2020 funding gives us an unprecedented opportunity to address this in a really holistic way,” she said.

Part of the research will involve looking at the work of tax professionals, and the blurred line between avoidance and evasion.

“We are interested in what drives that behaviour, and how it varies in different cultures and situations. This issue is also of great interest to accounting and law firms, and many of the largest accounting firms have offered their support to our work. Together with the other partners in our work, we aim to offer comprehensive policy options to address this problem,” Ms Killian said.