CH178270 - Sanctionable conduct by tax advisers: penalty for sanctionable conduct: disclosure: unprompted or prompted
A disclosure is unprompted if, when the person made it, they had no reason to believe that we had discovered or were about to discover the sanctionable conduct.
Otherwise, it is a prompted disclosure.
Whether a disclosure is unprompted or prompted is an objective test. The particular facts and circumstances which led to the disclosure are the basis of the test, not the belief that it was either unprompted or prompted.
A disclosure may be prompted if a person makes the disclosure after:
- they become aware that we have obtained, or were about to obtain, information about their sanctionable conduct, or
- we have contacted them as part of an enquiry into a particular client, tax or activity to which the sanctionable conduct relates, or
- we have issued them (or made them aware that we are intended to issue them) with a file access notice in response to which the person would have been required to provide information which would have disclosed their sanctionable conduct.
It will be exceptional for a disclosure to be unprompted if an investigation into the tax adviser’s conduct is in progress. The disclosure will be unprompted only if it is about something the investigating officer has not discovered or is not about to discover.
When we get to the point of charging the penalty for sanctionable conduct, we will consider the tax adviser’s behaviour/co-operation with our investigation and any subsequent sanctionable conduct, in determining whether any disclosure is unprompted or prompted.
If there is a prompted disclosure, the minimum penalty percentage is reduced to 35% of the potential lost revenue (PLR). If there is an unprompted disclosure, the minimum penalty percentage is reduced to 20% of the PLR. If there is no disclosure, there is no reduction.
FA12/SCH38/PARA26 (3) - (7) as amended