Deadman walking

Some years ago, I remember a reported tax case in which HMRC was represented by an inspector of taxes, the gloriously aptly named Mr Death. 

In TC00044, we now have a taxpayer by the name of Mr Deadman.  For the best part, the judgment is utterly unremarkable, except that it records Mr Deadman's accountant, acting both as agent and  as advocate before the tribunal, succeeded only in making a total tit out of himself.

With the New Disclosure Opportunity soon to go live, the occasional but spurious argument based on the ill publicised Offshore Disclosure Facility of 2007 seems to be surfacing. The judgment confirms that the lack of publicity afforded to the ODF does in no way excuse those who think they can assert that they did not avail themselves of that facility because they were not aware of its existence.  Whilst the detailed scope of the NDO is not yet known, the inability to rely on the lack of notice of ODF when wanting to come clean on this second occasion will be relevant to those offshore customers of the big 5 high street banks who were subject to the section 20 notices which gave rise to the ODF.  The currently available information suggests the NDO will not be denied to such persons, but that the penalty aspect will be higher than the 10% offered to others.