CH81010 – In what circumstances is a penalty payable: Inaccuracies: General
This guidance applies to returns and documents with a
filing date on or after 1 April 2009 where the return covers a tax
period beginning on or after 1 April 2008 seeCH81011for full details.
Not every inaccuracy will incur a penalty. No penalty will be
due if a person takes reasonable care to complete a document
correctly, even if it later turns out to be wrong, see
CH81120.
A penalty is chargeable where a person gives HMRC an
inaccurate return or other document, see
CH81060 which satisfies the two
conditions in
CH81070. These are
- the inaccurate document either amounts to or leads to
- an understatement of the person’s liability to tax, or
- a false or inflated statement of a loss by the person, or
- a false or inflated claim to repayment of tax.
- the inaccuracy was careless, see CH81120, or deliberate.
A penalty is also chargeable where a person fails to notify us
that we have under-assessed their tax liability within 30 days of
the date of the assessment, see
CH81090.
The penalties within Schedule 24 FA 2007, see
CH81011, are civil monetary penalties. We
also have a
criminal investigation policy and will refer the most serious
cases for consideration of criminal proceedings where
appropriate.
Where a penalty for an inaccuracy is payable the Human Rights Act (HRA) must be considered. You must apply this guidance in conjunction with the HRA procedures in the Enquiry Manual at EM1351 and EM1360.
