CH194840 - Electronic sales suppression: penalty for making, supplying or promoting an electronic sales suppression tool: reductions for disclosure: prompted and unprompted disclosure: type of disclosure

Unprompted disclosure

If a person tells us about making, supplying or promoting when they had no reason to believe that we had discovered it or were about to discover it, this is an unprompted disclosure. If a person makes an unprompted disclosure and discloses the full nature and extent of making, supplying or promoting, they are entitled to the maximum reduction available for quality of disclosure.

If the person has not disclosed the full nature or extent of making, supplying or promoting, then the unprompted disclosure they have made will be of limited value and the timing of the telling will not be of particular importance when considering the overall reduction for telling.

When calculating penalties, HMRC will take account of how long it has taken the person to come forward since the making, supplying or promoting occurred.

Prompted disclosure

If a person tells us about making, supplying or promoting only when they had reason to believe that we had discovered it or were about to discover it, we consider this to be a prompted disclosure. Any disclosure that is not unprompted is prompted.

Once you have informed a person that you have started a compliance check, they cannot make an unprompted disclosure about any making, supplying or promoting that you have told them you are checking.

Full disclosure is only unprompted if the information you requested when you started the compliance check could not have given them reason to believe that you had discovered, or were about to discover, any making, supplying or promoting that they knew about.

FA22/SCH14/PARA5