Readers’ forum: Impact of voluntary restitution on taxpayers

We have been helping a client with a disclosure of historical taxes. They were genuinely unaware of rental income on an overseas property.

HMRC is however treating this as careless so the department is assessing tax years 2015-16 onwards.

The covering letter is offering voluntary restitution of the years 2006-07 to 2014-15 and states: ‘Please note this is entirely voluntary there is no obligation to offer voluntary restitution for these years. If after consideration your client does not wish to offer voluntary restitution for the years outside of HMRC assessment time limits please let us know and we will arrange to have the amounts paid repaid’.

I have occasionally seen these offers and am not aware of any negative impact on the taxpayer but I wondered if readers have any different experiences with voluntary restitution?

Query 20 423 – Passerine.

The...