CISR85180 | CIS fraud measures: S72B Officers’ Liability: Mitigation

The company officer liability notice can be mitigated in addition to mitigation of the penalty.

The company officer will often act on behalf of the company during the HMRC intervention, either in their continuing official capacity or, in an insolvency, as authorised by the Insolvency Practitioner. In these cases, any admission or co-operation provided should be dealt with in mitigating the penalty itself. It will not be appropriate to take it into account again when considering the amount of the company officer liability notice.

Exceptionally, where a company officer has provided assistance which is not recognised in mitigating the penalty, this should be recognised by reducing the portion of the penalty attributed to the officer. Similar principles should be used as shown in CISR mitigation of the penalty (see CISR85140).