Final chance to notify under Offshore Disclosure Facility

Apparently by lunchtime on Friday there had been 55,187 notifications received, of which 6,675 came in this morning.

The Revenue are looking towards 65,000 - 70,000 by midnight.

David

but I guess you could try and claim reasonable excuse for not hearing in time!

I wrote the article within the Friday deadline, but such is the timing of the Taxwire, that it goes out on a Monday. As the next part in this saga is "What to do if you have not notified in time" this was quite a good way of limbering up for the topic.

Likewise, this arrived in my inbox at 18:25 on Monday so did not read it until 08:45 this morning, too late for 22nd!

Not much point in posting this on 25 June when the deadline was 22 June!

Nichola

I think there may be an extension for 'hard luck' cases where the phone is busy (phone lines are due to close at 8:00 p.m.) or the website is overloaded.

David

I notice that the HMR&C website is no longer accepting online notifications this morning. However late-comers are urged to telephone 0845 302 1401 (between 8:00 a.m. and 8:00 p.m. - open at weekends). HMR&C will accept late notifications in some circumstances.

The HMR&C staff on these phonelines have been working very hard as the final deadline loomed last night. This was evident as the phone was answered with a cheery "Good evening, how can I help you?" at 8 this morning!

An online facility for submission of disclosure forms will open on 28 June.

David

I understand from an HMR&C spokesman this morning (Saturday) that approximately 60,000 notifications were received by midnight on 22 June.

HMR&C will accept late notifications pretty much on the same basis as they accept late personal self-assessment tax returns.

Anyone making a notification by phone on 0845 302 1401 today (Saturday 23 June) will have their notification accepted virtually without question. The phone lines close at 8:00 p.m.

From Sunday 24 June onwards late notifications will be accepted where the notifier has a "reasonable excuse" for the delay. Such a reasonable excuse might be, for example, the notifier's illness or a family bereavement. However in such cases the notification must have been made as soon as practicable in all the circumstances.

I would have thought that it would be unlikely that an excuse such as delay on the part of an agent or difficulty in retrieving relevant information would be acceptable because the information needed to file an initial notification is so basic. Similarly anyone who has had difficulty submitting a notification online has the option of making it over the telephone, so that again seems unlikely to be an acceptable excuse after Saturday.

Overall HMR&C were expecting about a quarter of the 400,000 account holders to have 'something to declare'. So they will be expecting to find about 40,000 tax evaders amongst the 340,000 account holders who have not made a notification.

David
www.MLROsupport.co.uk

It is understood that of the 400,000 account holders notified to HMR&C by the banks the Revenue expect to find under-declarations of tax in about 100,000 cases.

On that basis, if they receive about 50,000 voluntary notifications under the scheme they would be looking to smoke out another 50,000 tax evaders from the other 350,000 account holders.

Sounds like fun!

David
www.MLROsupport.co.uk

by all accounts.

By the way David, HMRC told me that they ad sent out letters last week to only 200,000 people, so where do we get the extra 200,000 from?

Nichola

According to a usually well informed source (actually Dave Hartnett on Radio 4) the banks are understood to have sent out 400,000 letters but HMR&C selected 200,000 of the account holders of whom they were more confident they had correct addresses and sent letters only to those.

This apparently does not mean that HMR&C are only intending to follow up those 200,000 to whom they sent letters.

Make of that what you will!

David

P.S. On a related topic it would seem that HMR&C are adept at losing the current addresses of taxpayers anyway! See "Beware".

... of the shortfall in reports so far? Someone told me that they had received about 30K reports out of an expected 400K, but I have no info on how reliable that is.