Organisation
RCPO was created by the Commissioners for Revenue and Customs Act 2005, 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 SE1 and Ralli Quays in Manchester. 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 convictions in 88% of cases. It deals with cases of fraud in relation to direct taxes (income tax, capital gains tax, inheritance tax, corporation tax) and indirect taxes (mainly VAT - notably multi-million pound Missing Trader Intra-Community ("carousel") frauds), tax credits, drug smuggling, and money laundering, cases involving United Nations trade sanctions, conflict diamonds and CITES. The majority of cases involved drug trafficking prosecutions.
Read more about this topic: Revenue And Customs Prosecutions Office
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“It is because the body is a machine that education is possible. Education is the formation of habits, a superinducing of an artificial organisation upon the natural organisation of the body.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–1895)