Guidance

Managing serious defaulters — CC/FS14

Updated 17 December 2021

This factsheet contains information about the Managing Serious Defaulters (MSD) programme and when we may monitor the tax affairs of people who deliberately get them wrong.

This factsheet is one of a series. For the full list, see HMRC compliance checks factsheets.

About the Managing Serious Defaulters programme

The Managing Serious Defaulters (MSD) programme is for customers we find to be deliberately non-compliant in their tax affairs. Once we place you on the programme, we closely monitor all aspects of your tax affairs. Your tax affairs are monitored for a minimum period of between 1 and 5 years depending on your circumstances.

This way, we can make sure of the following:

• your tax affairs are up to date
• you take reasonable care to get your tax affairs right in the future

If we are satisfied that we no longer need to closely monitor your tax affairs, we’ll tell you this in writing.

What we mean by ‘deliberate non-compliance’

We consider that you’re deliberately non-compliant if:

• we charge you a penalty because of your deliberate behaviour
• during a Civil Investigation of Fraud, we identify you as presenting a continuing high risk to HMRC
• you are successfully prosecuted by the Director of Revenue and Customs Prosecutions, or another prosecuting authority, for a tax matter
• we charge you a Civil Evasion penalty for dishonesty
• you are required to give, and have given, security to HMRC as a guarantee against potential future default
• an insolvency practitioner has successfully recovered money or assets on our behalf
• you are required to pay, or have paid, a financial security

What you must do as part of the programme

As part of the programme you must:

• fill in a full tax return, not a ‘short’ one
• give detailed breakdowns of your business expenses and fill in the balance sheet entries
• make sure all your tax returns are accurate and submitted on time
• make all payments to us on time
• make any registrations on time

We’ll carry out regular reviews to make sure you do this.

How we’ll monitor your compliance

As well as making sure that you’ve met your obligations, we’ll review your tax returns more closely.

We’ll also carry out further reviews to check that you’ve put right any previous mistakes. We can monitor your tax affairs in a variety of ways. These will vary depending on whether or not you run a business.

They may include:

• making announced or unannounced inspection visits to check your business records or assets relating to your current accounting period
• carrying out a rigorous compliance check into all or any part of your tax affairs

We may charge you additional penalties or take criminal proceedings against you if we find either of the following:

• you have continued to deliberately or dishonestly get things wrong
• you get out of paying what you owe

If you need help

If you have any health or personal circumstances that make it difficult for you to deal with us, please tell the officer that has contacted you. We will help you in whatever way we can. For more details, go to GOV.UK and search ‘get help from HMRC if you need extra support’.

You can also ask someone else to deal with us on your behalf. For example, a professional adviser, friend or relative. However, we may still need to talk or write to you directly about some things. If we need to write to you, we will send a copy of our letter to the person you have asked us to deal with. If we need to talk to you, they can be with you when we do, if you prefer.

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.

If you are not happy with our service

Tell the person or office you have been dealing with. They will try to put things right. If you are still not happy, they will tell you how to make a formal complaint.