CH282070 - How to do a compliance check: charging tax and penalties: authorisations

Extended Time Limit (ETL) assessments, penalty assesssments and contract settlements must be authorised by an Authorising Officer.

The role of the authorising officer is to make sure that legislation is applied correctly and consistently, and decisions are supported by sufficient evidence that will, if necessary, convince a tribunal that an assessment is payable.

The authorising officer may differ between business areas and teams, and sometimes between different cases within a team. In normal circumstances the authorising officer is one level above the caseworker and could also be:

  • a line manager or manager with the appropriate skills
  • another manager or tax specialist within a team
  • a tax specialist from another team
  • a Customer Compliance Manager (CCM) (the CCM may be the same grade or a lower grade than the tax specialist or caseworker)
  • a Customer Coordinator (CC).

To enable authorisation of your proposed decisions on behaviour and the quality of disclosure, you must give the authorising officer a clear explanation of the reasons for your decisions and give them access to the supporting evidence.

Consider specific guidance for the authorisation required:

  • for penalty decisions, see CH407050 and EM4702
  • for penalties for failure to comply with information, inspection and data holder notices , see CH270100 and CH270200
  • for ETL assessments, see EM3257
  • for contract settlements, see EM6402 and EMAPP2

The function and responsibilities of an authorising officer are not to be confused with an authorised officer. An authorised officer is a HMRC officer who has the authority to undertake certain actions and to agree for other officers to use certain information, data gathering and inspection powers (e.g. apply to the tribunal for approval to issue a third party notice).

Depending on your work area, the authorising and authorised officer might be the same person, however the two roles have different responsibilities. For example, an authorising officer cannot undertake the actions of an authorised officer unless they have had the appropriate training. Likewise, an authorised officer who has not been given authority to act as an authorising officer cannot undertake those actions.

For guidance relating to authorised officers, see CH260000.