133 late-filing penalties

The appellant a ventilation engineer entered into a large contract based at a hospital in May 2007.

To help with the work he also took on a subcontractor. The subcontractor did not give his tax reference to the appellant and the appellant agreed to pay him gross until the end of the contract in March 2008.

The appellant failed to file any returns under Regulation 4(1) of the Income Tax (Construction Industry Scheme) Regulations 2005 – also known as the CIS Regulations – for the months the subcontractor worked for him submitting them all more than a year later in May 2009.

In November 2009 the appellant lodged an appeal against a HMRC decision to impose 141 penalties totalling £38 400 from his failure to lodge 12 consecutive monthly CIS returns.

HMRC later cancelled eight of these penalties which related to the...