AHP4350 - The Gateway Process: Developing Settlement Strategies

The risk lead should progress an operational handling strategy from Gateway 1 to Gateway 2 by:

  • gathering the facts and analysing the arrangements
  • identifying lead cases and developing technical challenges
  • ranking technical arguments and obtaining SOLS opinion on their relative merits
  • considering whether there are similar schemes or arrangements (see AHP3300) and whether there has been any recent litigation that could be relevant to the points at issue
  • checking whether there has been a settlement opportunity for similar arrangements which might inform the strategy
  • developing an internal communications plan
  • developing an external customer engagement plan
  • building a comprehensive list of the full population of all users and related tax in dispute
  • working with the policy owner to develop a strategy to resolve the issues, which should be submitted to the Anti-Avoidance Board for agreement at Gateway 2

The policy owner and risk lead will take account of the nature of the avoidance arrangements, the number of users and the number of years involved in developing the resolution strategy.

In preparing to make the Gateway 2 submission the risk lead and policy owner should consider:

  • Litigation & Settlement Strategy (LSS) and the code of governance for resolving tax disputes
  • parameters for a settlement and/or development of a litigation plan and pipeline; the litigation plan might include binding follower cases to lead cases under Rule 18 of the Tribunal rules or standing them over under Rule 5
  • using Spotlights or other communications as part of the strategy for tackling the avoidance schemes
  • ensuring liaison with relevant stakeholders, for example Solicitor’s Office, Appeals/Review Teams and the Counter-Avoidance Disruption team
  • how the strategy will deal with agents/promoters and non-compliant customers
  • any Public Law issues including collection and management (C&M) and Legitimate Expectation and how they impact or interact with the LSS

It is important that case teams consider the resource and logistical issues involved in implementing resolution strategies.