VATF45240 - Basic interventions: matters to consider when determining whether to use a civil intervention: assessments and penalties: raising penalties in particular circumstances: company officer liability: mitigation

The legislation provides for a company officer liability notice to be mitigated in addition to mitigation of the penalty.

The company officer will often act on behalf of the company during the HMRC intervention, either in their continuing official capacity or, in an insolvency, as authorised by the Insolvency Practitioner. In these cases, any admission or co-operation provided should be dealt with in mitigating the penalty itself. It will not be appropriate to take it into account again when considering the amount of the company officer liability notice.

Exceptionally, where a company officer has provided assistance which is not recognised in mitigating the penalty, this should be recognised by mitigating the portion of the penalty attributed to the officer. Similar principles and amounts should be used as shown in VATF45190 for mitigation of the penalty. For example, there will be no mitigation if more than 50% of the trader’s transactions by value are the subject of a Kittel/Mecsek denial.