INTRODUCTION Background
3.In July 2003 the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced a major review of the organisations dealing with tax policy and administration:(1) HM Customs and Excise, the Inland Revenue, and HM Treasury. Gus O’Donnell, Permanent Secretary to the Treasury, was responsible for leading the review. He published his report(2) alongside the March 2004 Budget, and the Chancellor announced that he accepted its recommendations. This Act implements the main recommendation – to create a new department integrating the Inland Revenue and HM Customs and Excise. The new department is called “Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs” (HMRC)(3).
4.The Customs and Excise Prosecutions Office was created in April 2003 and operated under the terms of a Memorandum of Understanding agreed between the Attorney General, Treasury Ministers and the Commissioners of Customs and Excise. Following specific recommendations made in the Hon. Mr Justice Butterfield's Review(4), and accepted by Ministers in December 2003. The Act puts the prosecutions office on a statutory footing, and provides for it to undertake all the new department’s prosecutions in England and Wales (i.e. including those formerly carried out by the Inland Revenue). The new prosecutions office is called “the Revenue and Customs Prosecutions Office (RCPO)(5). The new Memorandum of Understanding between the Attorney General, Treasury Ministers, the Commissioners for HMRC and the Director of RCPO is available on www.rcpo.gov.uk.