Contentious Tax Bulletin

• Published date: 07 August 2023
• Subject Matter: Employment and HR, Tax, Employee Benefits & Compensation, National Insurance, Tax Authorities
• Law Firm: Price Bailey
• Author: Andrew Park
• topic: Corporate / Commercial,Tax Law,Employment Law

What happened in July 2023

In the July bulletin, Andrew Park, Tax Investigations Partner at Price Bailey, provides an overview of the most recent and significant contentious tax news, legislative changes, updates, and relevant case decisions that occurred throughout the month.

HMRC Initiatives and New Legislation

Reboot of HMRC Code of Practice 9 ("COP 9") / the Contractual Disclosure Facility ("CDF")

HMRC's Contractual Disclosure Facility (CDF) provides individuals suspected of tax fraud with the opportunity to avoid possible criminal prosecution by making a full disclosure of tax fraud. Taxpayers can request the CDF proactively for voluntary disclosures, benefiting from lower penalties or, alternatively, HMRC may offer the CDF to individuals who it suspects committed tax fraud. COP9 represents an extensive and thorough tax investigation, it is not a routine enquiry.

However, HMRC are concerned that some taxpayers and advisors haven't taken the requirements for HMRC's flagship COP 9 / CDF civil investigation of fraud process seriously enough.

Reworded guidance spells out more strongly what is expected in return for the process's guarantee of non-prosecution. Greater emphasis is placed on the expectation that taxpayer's should pay admitted liabilities early in the process and admit all non-deliberate as well as deliberate errors at the outset.

HMRC are understood to be particularly frustrated with how many improperly advised taxpayers have made initial formal admissions of deliberately underpaying tax in order to get the protection of COP 9 / CDF only to seek to attempt to later withdraw the admissions later in the process once they are no longer quite so worried about possible prosecution.

More so now than ever, nobody should enter into the COP 9 / CDF process without instructing investigation specialists.

New Draft Legislation to...