CEP4050 - Civil evasion penalties for Customs, Excise and VAT: how civil evasion penalties are calculated: overview

The penalties for dishonest conduct for the purpose of evading customs duty, excise duty or VAT are set by the legislation as equal to the amount of tax or duty evaded or sought to be evaded.

However, the legislation allows for the penalties to be reduced by HMRC or a tribunal to any amount, including nil. We call this mitigation of the penalty.

To see the relevant legislation on calculating civil evasion penalties, go to Customs, Excise or VAT.

In exercising discretion to reduce a civil evasion penalty, it is the Department’s policy that the customer can ‘earn’ such mitigation, see CEP4150