CH81170 - Penalties for Inaccuracies: Types of inaccuracy: Under- assessment by HMRC
You must check the date from which these rules apply for the tax or duty you are dealing with. See CH81011 for full details.
A penalty may be appropriate where tax has been under-assessed because of the person’s (P’s) failure to send us a return, see CH81090. You must consider
- whether P knew or should have known about the under-assessment, and
- what steps (if any) it would have been reasonable for them to take to tell you about the under-assessment.
P must tell you if they think the assessment is too low. Reasonable steps to tell you about the under-assessment include
- phoning to discuss it
- writing, e-mailing or faxing an HMRC office to tell us the assessment is insufficient
- consulting an agent to enable them to inform us and ensuring HMRC are informed within the 30 day period
- sending us the completed return after the assessment has been issued.
P will not be liable to a penalty if they tell us that the assessment is too low within 30 days of the date the assessment is issued. P only has to tell us the assessment is too low. »Ê¹ÚÌåÓýappy do not necessarily have to send us the outstanding return. You may need to consider what other action is appropriate to obtain the return.
A person who sends their return in on time will not receive an assessment of estimated liability. »Ê¹ÚÌåÓýappy will have self-assessed, or declared their tax liability, and so this penalty will not apply.
This penalty could apply where, exceptionally, an IHT account is not received within the appropriate time-limits and we make a determination of the tax due.