CH81140 - Types of inaccuracy: Inaccuracy due to failure to take reasonable care

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.

Failure to take reasonable care can be likened to the longstanding concept in general law of “negligence”.

In the 1856 case of Blyth v Birmingham Waterworks Co, Baron Alderman said

Negligence is the omission to do something which a reasonable man, guided upon those considerations which ordinarily regulate the conduct of human affairs, would do, or doing something which a prudent and reasonable man would not do. The defendants might be liable for negligence, if, unintentionally, they omitted to do that which a prudent and reasonable person would have done, or did that which a person taking reasonable care would not have done.

There is no question of whether or not the person intended to make the inaccuracy. If he did that would be deliberate, see CH81150 and CH81160. It is simply a question of examining what the person did or failed to do and asking whether a prudent and reasonable person would have done that or failed to do that in those circumstances.

Repeated inaccuracies may form part of a pattern of behaviour which suggests a lack of care by a person in developing adequate systems for the recording of transactions or preparing tax returns. It is, however, important to keep a sense of proportion. Repetition of the same inaccuracy would not always, in itself, indicate a failure to take reasonable care.

People do make mistakes. We do not expect perfection. We are simply seeking to establish whether the person has taken the care and attention that could be expected from a reasonable person taking reasonable care in similar circumstances.

For practical examples of failure to take reasonable care, see CH81142