Ten new tax defaulters have been added to HMRC’s rogues’ gallery. This follows the publication of twenty tax offenders’ details last year. So far only one of the original twenty has been caught.
HMRC has statutory authority to “name and shame” taxpayers who they consider to be deliberate tax defaulters. Generally speaking these are persons who have received penalties for:
• deliberate errors in their tax returns or
• deliberately failing to comply with their tax obligations.
HMRC may publish information about a deliberate tax defaulter where:
• HMRC have carried out an investigation and the person has been charged one or more penalties for deliberate defaults, and
• those penalties involve tax of more than £25,000.
However, their information will not be published if the person earns the maximum reduction of the penalties by fully disclosing details of the defaults.
HMRC will publish sufficient information to identify the deliberate tax defaulter, the penalties imposed for their deliberate defaults and the amount of tax on which those penalties are based.
HMRC publish this information once these penalties are final. A penalty becomes final on
• the day after the end of the appeal period if the person does not make an appeal, or
• the date when an appeal is finally determined, or
• the date when a contract settlement is made.
The law requires that HMRC do not publish any information about the person for more than 12 months from the date HMRC first publish it.