The Interconnections between Tax Crime, Organized Crime, and Corruption

Abstract

This chapter explores the interconnections between tax crime, organized crime, and corruption from phenomenological, conceptual, and legal perspectives to shed light on under-explored phenomena and their impact on the EU institutions and Member States. On the one side, organized criminal groups often engage in sophisticated tax fraud schemes and exploit current limits in the legal and institutional frameworks at the national and EU levels to make illegal gains. On the other side, public officials in tax and customs administrations and law enforcement agencies involved in the fight against financial crimes can be enablers of tax evasion in cases of bribery and collusion with criminals. The dirty money generated by these criminal offences is also often cleaned through money laundering schemes developed with the assistance of some dishonest professionals. Organized tax crime and fiscal corruption, coupled with money laundering, are serious threats to security at the EU and national levels. Considering their correlation, they should be targeted explicitly from an operational perspective by enhancing an integrated model which combines a ‘whole-of-government approach’ and ‘responsibilization strategy’ in the public and private sectors.