VAT update - October 2015

HMRC publishes responses to consultation on new penalties model

Earlier this year HMRC published a discussion paper seeking views on the design of a new penalties model. On 17 September 2015, it published a summary of the responses it had received, in which it concluded that it needs to distinguish between taxpayers that are generally compliant and those who are not. The new model needs to encourage compliance from those that make one-off errors, and counter the activities of careless or intentionally non-compliant taxpayers.