Publishing details of deliberate tax defaulters

HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) publishes details of deliberate tax defaulters (PDDD) - people who have received penalties either for:

deliberate errors in their tax returns or
deliberately failing to comply with their tax obligations.

The law that allows this is Section 94 Finance Act 2009.

HMRC may publish information about a deliberate tax defaulter where

HMRC have carried out an investigation and the person has been charged one or more penalties for deliberate defaults, and
those penalties involve tax of more than £25,000.

However, their information will not be published if the person earns the maximum reduction of the penalties by fully disclosing details of the defaults.

HMRC will publish sufficient information to identify the deliberate tax defaulter, the penalties imposed for their deliberate defaults and the amount of tax on which those penalties are based.

HMRC publish this information once these penalties are final. A penalty becomes final on

the day after the end of the appeal period if the person does not make an appeal, or
the date when an appeal is finally determined, or
the date when a contract settlement is made.

The law requires that HMRC do not publish any information about the person for more than 12 months from the date HMRC first publish it.

See the current list of deliberate tax defaulters (PDF 68K)

Please note that each entry relates specifically to the dates listed. The address is the one associated with the published person at the time of the default. It should not be assumed that tax defaults are currently taking place at the published address or by the published person because, for example:

the published person may have changed their behaviour
the published person may no longer be at the published address
the business currently at the published address may have no connection with published business
the business currently at the published address may have the same name as the published business but could be under completely new management

In order to comply with the obligation in section 94(9) Finance Act 2009 that no information may be published for longer than 12 months the lists of deliberate tax defaulters will not be captured for the National Archives.

If you want more information about publishing details of deliberate tax defaulters you can look at the technical guidance HMRC provides to its officers on this issue.

See the Compliance Handbook

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