ODF – don’t all rush at once

With three weeks to go until the expiry of the registration deadline for the Offshore Disclosure Facility, it is reported that a mere 4,300 people have availed themselves of the facility so far; a figure which is barely one per cent of the number of offshore bank accounts for which HM Revenue & Customs are said to hold details.

Dave Hartnett, chairman of the Revenue, says that the Revenue is keen to publicise the ODF in the next few weeks. Given that, so far, anyone blinking would have missed the existence of the ODF, presumably this means the Revenue is saving its advertising budget for an eleventh hour promotional binge.

Whilst we can be confident there will be a peak of activity in the run up to the deadline, one, nevertheless, has to wonder over the worryingly low figure of notifications to date. Might this indicate that there is some truth in the rumours that the availability of the ODF (and its onshore equivalent) has gone unnoticed and unappreciated by huge numbers of general practice firms who, in turn, are failing to appraise their clients accordingly ?