Guidance

General information about compliance checks into excise matters

Updated 25 February 2022

This factsheet tells you about compliance checks into excise matters. A compliance check allows HMRC to check that all matters relating to Excise Duty are correct. It’s one of a series of compliance checks factsheets. For the full list, go to www.gov.uk and search for ‘HMRC compliance checks factsheets’.

If you need help

If you have any health or personal circumstances that may make it difficult for you to deal with us, tell the officer who has contacted you. We’ll help you in whatever way we can. For more information, go to www.gov.uk/get-help-hmrc-extra-support

You can also ask someone else to deal with us on your behalf, for example, a professional adviser, friend or relative. We may however still need to talk or write to you directly about some things. If we need to write to you, we’ll send a copy to the person you’ve asked us to deal with. If we need to talk to you, they can be with you when we do, if you prefer.

During the compliance check

When we start the check, we’ll tell you what we need from you.

This may include:

• visiting your business premises to inspect goods and documents relating to excise matters
• visiting your business premises to ask for information about excise goods or activities that you provide, or intend to provide
• visiting your business premises to check that you are complying with the terms of any excise approval, registration, authorisation or license that you may hold
• contacting you to ask for information or documents about excise goods, activities, or any excise related approval, registration, authorisation or license

If we cannot agree, or if you do not help us, we may have to use our legal powers to get what we need. You cannot choose to ignore an information or inspection notice if we give you one, but you do have certain safeguards when we use our legal powers.

You can speak to the officer who’s dealing with the check if you:

• are not sure why we’re asking for something
• cannot do what we ask
• think that something we’ve asked for is unreasonable or not relevant to the check
• have any other questions at any stage of the check

If we visit you, you must allow us entry to your business premises. If we’re visiting your business premises, the officer dealing with the check may issue a copy of factsheet CC/FS16, ‘Excise visits’ which explains about our visits. We’ll normally only visit you at home if you run your business from there or if excise goods are stored there.

Use of open source material during a compliance check

We may observe, monitor, record and retain internet data which is available to anyone. This is known as ‘open source’ material and includes news reports, internet sites, Companies House and Land Registry records, blogs and social networking sites where no privacy settings have been applied.

If you need more time

You should tell us if we’ve asked you to do something and you need more time. We may agree to allow extra time if there’s a good reason. For example, if you’re seriously ill or someone close to you has died.

The benefits of helping us with the compliance check

If you help us with the compliance check, we can:

• complete it as quickly as possible and reduce any inconvenience to you
• reduce the amount of any penalty we charge you if we find there’s something wrong

If we find something wrong, we’ll work with you to put it right, and tell you if you need to pay any:

• additional Excise Duty
• penalties

If we’re considering charging you a penalty, we’ll look at how much assistance you’ve given us during the check. We call this assistance the ‘quality of disclosure’ or ‘telling, helping and giving’.

We measure the quality of disclosure by considering how much:

• you tell us about what’s wrong
• help you give us to work out what’s wrong
• access you give us to the information or documents we need to complete the check

There are ways that you can help us with the check. For example, if we ask:

• to visit your business premises to inspect your business records and assets, or to carry out a valuation
• for information or documents

and you choose not to help us or not to give us everything we’ve asked for, this will affect our view on the quality of disclosure.

How to get the maximum penalty reduction if something is wrong

If there’s something wrong and you do everything you can to assist us, we’ll reduce the penalty by the maximum amount possible.

If you know or suspect that there’s something wrong, to get the maximum reduction possible, you must:

• tell us everything you know about it immediately
• work with us to calculate the right amount of tax

If we find something wrong that you did not know about, to get the maximum reduction possible, you must:

• have given us as much assistance as we needed, up to the point we found something wrong
• immediately tell the officer dealing with the check everything about it, let them see any records they ask for, and help them to work out the right amount of tax

To work out the quality of disclosure, we also consider how long it’s taken you to tell us about anything that’s wrong. If it’s taken you a long time, (such as 3 years or more), we usually restrict the maximum reduction we give for the quality of disclosure to 10 percentage points above the minimum of the penalty range. This means you will not benefit from the lowest penalty percentage that’s normally available.

For more information about penalties, go to www.gov.uk and search for ‘HMRC compliance checks factsheets’ then select ‘Penalties’.

If you think we should stop the compliance check

If you think we should stop the check, you first need to tell us why. If we do not agree, you may be able to ask the independent tribunal that deals with tax matters to decide if we should stop it.

If something is wrong

If we find something wrong, we’ll:

• explain why it’s wrong, and work with you to put it right
• tell you how to stop it happening again

We may also extend the scope of our check. If we believe that the correct amount of Excise Duty has not been paid, we can:

• send you a demand for the duty due
• seize the goods, or items connected with them

We may impose additional conditions or restrictions, or revoke them, and in serious cases of non-compliance we have the right to revoke any approvals granted by us if you have:

• excise approval
• registration
• authorisation
• license

You may also have to pay a penalty.

About the penalties that we may charge

You may have to pay a penalty if you have:

• supplied certain excise products knowing that they will be used in a way that results in an additional amount of duty being due
• used certain excise products for a purpose that results in an additional amount of duty being due (this is called ‘misuse’)
• handled goods on which there is unpaid Excise Duty and where that duty has not been deferred in agreement with us — handling goods includes:
  • taking possession of them
  • being involved in the carrying, removing, depositing or keeping of them
  • otherwise dealing with them
• not registered for an Excise Duty on time
• sent us an inaccurate return or document

If you’ve deliberately done something wrong

We may carry out a criminal investigation with a view to prosecution if you’ve deliberately done something wrong, such as:

• give us information that you know is not true, whether verbally or in a document
• dishonestly misrepresented how much tax you owe, or claimed payments you’re not entitled to

Managing serious defaulters

If you deliberately got your tax affairs wrong, and we find this during the check, we may monitor your tax affairs more closely. We have an enhanced monitoring programme called ‘managing serious defaulters’. For more information, read factsheet CC/FS14, ‘Managing serious defaulters’. Go to www.gov.uk
and search for ‘CC/FS14’.

Publishing details of deliberate defaulters

We may publish your details if you deliberately got your tax affairs wrong, but we will not do this if we’ve given you the maximum penalty reduction. For more information, read factsheet CC/FS13, ‘Publishing details of deliberate defaulters’. Go to www.gov.uk and search for ‘CC/FS13’.

What happens at the end of the compliance check

When we’ve completed the check, we’ll either send you one or more ‘decision notices’.

A decision notice can be:

• an assessment, or amendment to an assessment
• a penalty notice, if a penalty is due
• a letter explaining the final position

If you cannot pay what you owe

If you think you may have problems paying, tell the officer dealing with the check straightaway.

If you disagree

If there’s something that you do not agree with, you can tell us.

You can appeal against most of the decisions that we make. We’ll write and tell you when we make a decision that you can appeal against. We’ll also explain the decision and tell you what to do if you disagree.

You can find more about this in factsheet HMRC1, ‘HM Revenue and Customs decisions — what to do if you disagree’. Go to www.gov.uk and search for ‘HMRC1’.

Your principal rights and obligations

You have:

• the right to be represented — you can authorise anyone to act on your behalf
• an obligation to take reasonable care to get things right — if you have an adviser, you must still take reasonable care to make sure that any returns, documents or details they send us on your behalf are correct

The ‘HMRC Charter’ explains what you can expect from us and what we expect from you. For more information, go to www.gov.uk and search for ‘HMRC Charter’

Your rights if we’re considering penalties

We’ll tell you if there’s something wrong and we’re considering penalties. To find out what rights you have when we consider penalties, read factsheet CC/FS9, ‘The Human Rights Act and penalties’. Go to www.gov.uk and search for ‘CC/FS9’.

Authorising a representative

If you have a representative, you can ask us to deal directly with them during the check. We’ll only give them details of the check if it relates to taxes that you’ve authorised us to contact them about.

If you want to authorise a:

• professional tax adviser, ask them to give you an authorisation form to complete and send to us
• friend or relative, write to us and say who you want to authorise and what you want them to deal with on your behalf

Compliance checks that this factsheet relates to

This factsheet relates to compliance checks for the following:

• Air Passenger Duty
• Alcohol Liquor Duties
• Amusement Machine Licence Duty
• Bingo Duty
• Excise Duties (Holding and Movements)
• Gaming Duty
• General Betting Duty
• Hydrocarbon Oils Duty
• Lottery Duty
• Machine Games Duty
• Plastic Packaging Tax (from 1 April 2022)
• Pool Betting Duty
• Remote Gaming Duty
• Soft Drinks Industry Levy
• Tobacco Products Duty

More information

Do not stop sending returns or making payments. During a compliance check, carry on sending returns and making payments when they are due

Our privacy notice

Our privacy notice sets out the standards that you can expect from us when we ask for information or hold information about you. Go to www.gov.uk and search for ‘HMRC Privacy Notice’.

If you’re not happy with our service

You can tell the person or office you’ve been dealing with. They’ll try to put things right. If you are still not happy, they’ll tell you how to make a formal complaint.