Penalty for failure to notify under DOTAS

 In a previous decision the First-tier Tribunal had found that certain contractor loan arrangements should have been notifiable under the disclosure of tax avoidance schemes (DOTAS) regime and that H was a promoter of those arrangements. HMRC issued a penalty exceeding £1m for the failure. H appealed.

The first ground of appeal was that the arrangements were substantially the same as previous arrangements and that therefore FA 2004 s 308(4C) deemed H to have complied with its disclosure obligation. It relied here on comments made by Judge Mosedale in the previous appeal where she said: ‘Hyrax was promoted as being the same as the previous iterations bar being tweaked to avoid being caught by HMRC’s latest round of anti-avoidance legislation.’ The tribunal rejected this argument (which was completely contrary to what H had previous said) and pointed out (see paragraph 169) many differences between H...