ECSH82825 | Sanctions for non-compliance: financial penalties: financial penalties framework: behaviours - definition of an unprompted and prompted disclosure

A disclosure will either be prompted or unprompted and will be dependent on the specific facts in each case.

A disclosure is unprompted if it is made at a time when the person making the disclosure has no reason to believe that HMRC have discovered, or are about to discover, the failure being disclosed. Otherwise, it is a prompted disclosure.

If the disclosure was made as a result of any contact with any HMRC officer (not just an Economic Crime - Supervision officer), then this is a prompted disclosure.

To encourage unprompted disclosures there is a reduction applied to the penalty of 50% and the penalty framework is publicly available here.

A disclosure will be treated as unprompted even if at the time it is made the full extent of the disclosure is not known, as long as the full details are provided within a reasonable time. E.g. if a business makes a general disclosure, and then follows up with more detail, the disclosure is treated as unprompted.

All the facts need to be considered before deciding if a disclosure is unprompted or prompted. The decision maker (DM) should apply a common-sense approach in deciding whether or not a disclosure is unprompted.