CH72120 - Penalties for Failure to Notify: Types of failure to notify: Deliberate and concealed
A failure to notify, see CH71220, is deliberate and concealed if the person
- knows that they are required to notify us about the relevant obligation, see CH71300,
- is able to do so, but
- does not do so and takes active steps to conceal the fact that they are required to do so.
Concealing the fact that they should have notified us about a relevant obligation is the most serious level of evasion.
The act of concealment may include
- creating false evidence of a non-taxable source to explain undisclosed taxable income
- creating false stock records
- creating false invoices to support inaccurate figures of turnover
- backdating or postdating contracts or invoices
- destroying books and records so that they should not be available
- creating sales records that deliberately understate the value of the goods sold, the balance of the full price being paid separately to the person
- concealing excise goods on which the duty has not been paid or deferred with ‘innocent’ goods.
Although the penalties for deliberate inaccuracies are civil monetary penalties, we also have a criminal investigation policy and will refer the most serious cases for consideration of criminal proceedings where appropriate.
For practical examples of deliberate failure to notify with concealment see CH72140.