Skip to main content
HMRC internal manual

Compliance Handbook

CH178280 - Sanctionable conduct by tax adviser: penalty for sanctionable conduct: disclosure: quality of disclosure

As well as whether any disclosure was prompted or unprompted, we must consider the quality of the person’s disclosure when determining the final penalty amount.

To determine the quality of disclosure, we need to consider the three elements of disclosure, which means the extent to which the person:

The more a person tells, helps or gives access to us, the higher the quality of their disclosure.

As a guide we weight the elements of disclosure as follows.

Element of disclosure

Percentage

Telling

30%

Helping

40%

Giving access

30%

Total

100%

While we have regard to the disclosure when we assess the amount of the penalty, the minimum penalty percentages for sanctionable conduct are:

  • 35% of the PLR for prompted disclosure
  • 20% of the PLR for unprompted disclosure

Penalties for sanctionable conduct cannot be reduced below these levels, regardless of the quality of the disclosure.

FA12/SCH38/PARA26 (3) - (7) as amended