AHP3300 - Finding avoidance: Newly identified avoidance risks and referral of risks

Avoidance risks can be identified in a number of ways including:

  • as a result of disclosure under the Disclosure of Tax Avoidance Schemes (DOTAS) legislation or its VAT equivalent (see AHP3400)
  • by caseworkers while undertaking their day-to-day work
  • through profiling work carried out by Risk and Intelligence Service (RIS) or Knowledge, Analysis and Intelligence (KAI) either in isolation or in connection with known avoidance schemes

However risks are identified they must be referred to AAB Secretariat who will:

  • liaise with stakeholders to enable a handling strategy to be developed and agreed
  • refer new risks to the Counter Avoidance Disruption Team to challenge the behaviour of tax avoidance promoters and enablers
  • maintain a complete picture of all known (or suspected) avoidance risks
  • link with other intelligence already held

In order to ensure the department has a complete picture of avoidance it is important that all avoidance risks, whether definitively identified as avoidance or considered likely to be avoidance, are brought into the Avoidance Handling Process. If it later transpires that the issue is not avoidance it can be removed from the process - see AHP4570.

In considering any potential avoidance risk you should refer to your directorate’s guidance and processes and escalate suspected avoidance to AAB Secretariat.

Risks that appear similar to existing schemes

If a new risk looks similar to one that has already been identified you should refer the details to AAB Secretariat who will liaise with the relevant policy owner.

If the policy owner, in consultation with relevant stakeholders, decides that the new risk should be subsumed into an existing handling strategy they should inform AAB Secretariat who will add the Scheme Reference Number (SRN)/Non-Disclosed (ND) reference number to the existing Avoidance Risk Governance Document (ARGD).

To ensure that the policy owner is sighted on the growth and development of risks, the handling strategy must be referred back to the policy owner, as AAB’s delegated authority, at Gateway 1A where there has been (This content has been withheld because of exemptions in the Freedom of Information Act 2000) since the previous handling strategy was agreed. The de minimis levels that trigger a Gateway 1A referral are:

  • (This content has been withheld because of exemptions in the Freedom of Information Act 2000)
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New risks

If the risk differs from any known avoidance scheme that has already been allocated an SRN or ND reference number, you must refer it to AAB Secretariat who will register the risk and liaise with stakeholders to arrange for a handling strategy to be agreed.