Deliberate tax defaulters named and shamed

07 July 2017


The list of deliberate tax defaulters has been updated with the latest penalties charged to those companies found to be falling foul of tax law.

Topping the bill is metals trader ‘Matlock Recycling Limited’ who have been charged £2,227,887 in penalties for deliberating defaulting on over £3.5 million in tax payments over a period of 17 months between 2013 and 2014.

See the current list of deliberate tax defaulters on GOV.UK.

Background

HMRC will publish details of those people who have received penalties either for:

  • deliberate errors in their tax returns
  • deliberately failing to comply with their tax obligations

HMRC may publish information about a deliberate tax defaulter where:

  • HMRC have carried out an investigation and the person has been charged one or more penalties for deliberate defaults
  • those penalties involve tax of more than £25,000

However, their information won’t be published if the person earns the maximum reduction of the penalties by fully disclosing details of the defaults.

HMRC will publish enough information to identify the:

  • deliberate tax defaulter
  • penalties imposed for their deliberate defaults
  • amount of tax on which those penalties are based

HMRC will only publish this information once these penalties are final.

The law requires that any information about the person is not published for more than 12 months from the date it is first published, and the lists of deliberate tax defaulters won’t be captured for the National Archives.