Offshore disclosure enquiry
My client is undergoing an offshore disclosure enquiry and has been asked for documentary evidence of a receipt paid into a Jersey bank account in 1998.
My client is not Uk domiciled and they know that the money came from South Africa as part of an inheritance. They are happy to provide the information but unfortunately they no longer have it.
I cannot see that they would have an ogligation to keep records that are twelve years old but now we are saying to the inspector that the information is no longer available. Could she assume therefore that the amount involved (about #80K) was taxable income? What can my client do? The solicitor who dealt with the estate was murdered(!) and the firm that he left behind has changed hands twice since!
South Africa isn't that different in law than the UK.
If the proceeds were part of an inheritence, then there will be a record of either the will (if the deceased wrote one) or the intestacy claim. In either circumstance, copies of these documents will be part of the public record and copies will be made available for a fee.
If wishing to research this himself rather than get a probate or estates specialist to do it for your client, the following is a good starting point.
http://www.national.archives.gov.za/reposit.htm
However, if a client had told me that they were under investigation, that they had no documentation for a sum of 80,000 received (albeit more than a decade ago) and that the solicitor dealing with the deceased will had been murdered and the solicitors office had no records - I would be slightly suspicious. Certainly, it does happen.
However for many years, South Africa has been subject to capital controls and it wouldn't surprise me if the source of this money wasn't from the proceeds of asset sales or similar in South Africa that were subsequently smuggled out in the form of gold, diamonds or other saleable items. I seem to remember that in the immediate post-apartied era, there was a fashion for building huge motor launches, taking them over to Australia and selling them there - bypassing South African capital controls.
Cynical - Moi?