Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether he will bring forward legislative proposals to make it an offence for an organisation offering audit services to sell tax avoidance schemes; and if he will make a statement.

The Government is committed to tackling tax avoidance and ensuring that companies and individuals pay their fair share of tax.

HMRC has a suite of powers to tackle and challenge those who promote or otherwise enable tax avoidance. Those who design, sell, manage or otherwise promote tax avoidance schemes face a range of sanctions including penalties if they fail to disclose their schemes to HMRC where required to do so under the Disclosure of Tax Avoidance Schemes (DOTAS) regime. They can also face action under the Promoters of Tax Avoidance Schemes (POTAS) regime which includes imposing conditions on them to ensure they change their behaviour. And, if any person (not just a scheme promoter) enables another person to use abusive tax arrangements which HMRC later defeats, they could be subject to the an ‘Enabler’s’ penalty.

Under the ‘Enablers’ penalty, introduced in Finance (No. 2) Act 2017, anyone who knowingly enables another person to use an abusive tax arrangement that is later defeated by HMRC will face a penalty of 100% of the fees they have earned from that activity. This new legislation is at the forefront of HMRC work to disrupt the avoidance market, identifying both the schemes and the individuals behind them and acting quickly to challenge them. It strengthens HMRC’s tools for tackling both promoters and others who profit from enabling others to try to avoid tax.

The effectiveness of HMRC’s powers is kept under review.