VATF45250 | Basic interventions: matters to consider when determining whether to use a civil intervention: assessments and penalties: raising penalties in particular circumstances: publication of details

HMRC has the power to publish details of the traders penalised under s69C, and also of company officers to whom liability is attributed.

Details may only be published where the VAT on which the penalty is charged exceeds £50,000 or, for company officers, where the amount of the penalty attributed exceeds £25,000.

HMRC policy is not to name traders or officers where it appears that the business is primarily carrying out legitimate trade as opposed to facilitating VAT fraud. Accordingly, if less than 50% of the trader’s transactions by value across the relevant periods (i.e. the VAT periods affected by the Kittel/Mecsek decision) are the subject of a Kittel/Mecsek denial then we will not publish the trader’s details.

You should address the question of publication, with reference to the above paragraph, in the means of knowledge or Mecsek submission.

The publication process, including writing to the trader and asking for representations, is handled by the team in ISBC which handles the Publishing the Details of Deliberate Defaulters programme (PDDD). A referral should be made to the PDDD team as soon as the penalty becomes final, see MTOG85219.