Professional secrecy is not absolute

How we work

Why we say it at the first meeting

Clients arrive with a reasonable assumption: whatever they tell their accountant stays with their accountant. Professional secrecy is real and we take it seriously. But it is not absolute, and the exception is substantial. Under the anti-money-laundering law of 18 September 2017, accountants and tax advisers are obliged entities. We must identify clients and beneficial owners against documentary evidence, assess the risk of the relationship, keep those records, and report knowledge or suspicion of money laundering to the Financial Intelligence Processing Unit.

The part that surprises people is the prohibition that comes with it. We may not tell a client that a report has been made, or that one is being considered. That is not discretion on our part; disclosure is itself an offence. We would far rather a prospective client hears this across a table at the beginning than assumes a confidentiality that does not exist. It also explains why we ask for identity documents before doing any work, and why an engagement is declined when identification cannot be completed.

The same preference for saying the uncomfortable thing early governs tax advice. A structure that exists mainly to produce a tax advantage contrary to the purpose of the legislation can be disregarded under the general anti-abuse provision, and the bill then arrives with interest, sometimes years later and usually after the adviser who built it has moved on. We will tell you when something is aggressive rather than clever, and we will decline to implement it.