KYC360º FAQ

Can Fiscal Offences such as tax evasion predicate Money Laundering?

The answer depends upon the definition of crime within the money laundering legislation of a particular jurisdiction and the treatment of any offence of tax evasion that is recognized within that jurisdiction. For example in a jurisdiction that does not levy taxes and which defines crime for the purposes of its money laundering law as:

any conduct which if it had been committed in this jurisdiction would render a person liable to one or more years imprisonment

is unlikely to recognize tax evasion as predicate conduct for money laundering simply because tax evasion is not illegal in the jurisdiction concerned.

However tax evasion and other fiscal offences are treated as predicate money laundering crimes in many of the world’s most effectively regulated jurisdictions.