Penalty for late payment of accelerated payment notice

The taxpayer participated in tax mitigation arrangements that involved investing in three Cobalt enterprise zone schemes. The appeal concerned the Cobalt 7 and 8 scheme.

HMRC opened an enquiry into the taxpayer’s 2007-08 tax return and this was extended in January 2010 to include his participation in Cobalt 7 and 8. HMRC issued an accelerated payment notice (APN) in connection with that scheme. The due date for payment was 18 May 2017. The taxpayer had also received APNs for the other two Cobalt schemes but the payment date for these was 2 June 2017. He emailed his accountant about the relevant dates who said he would include this information in discussions he was having to set up a time-to-pay (TTP) arrangement.

But the accountant admitted to the tribunal despite the earlier exchanges with the taxpayer that he thought the due date for all the schemes was 2 June....