Guidance: Compliance checks: The Human Rights Act and penalties for breaches of the prohibition of promotion of certain tax avoidance arrangements (POP) legislation — CC/FS92

This factsheet tells you about your rights under Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights. This was incorporated into British law through the Human Rights Act 1998. It gives you certain rights when we’re considering whether to charge certain types of penalties.

We’ll ask you to read this factsheet if we’re considering charging you a penalty for a breach of the prohibition of promotion of certain tax avoidance arrangements (POP) legislation. You can find more information about these penalties in factsheet CC/FS91, ‘Prohibition of promotion of certain tax avoidance arrangements’.

This factsheet is one of a series. For the full list go to GOV.UK and search ‘HMRC compliance checks factsheets’.

If you have any health or personal circumstances that may make it difficult for you to deal with us, please tell the officer who has contacted you. We’ll help you in whatever way we can. For more information, go to GOV.UK and search ‘get help from HMRC’.

You can also ask someone else to deal with us on your behalf. For example, a professional adviser, friend or relative. However, we may still need to talk or write to you directly about some things. If we need to write to you, we’ll send a copy to the person you’ve asked us to deal with. If we need to talk to you, they can be with you when we do, if you prefer.

What your rights under Article 6 mean for you when we’re considering penalties

We would appreciate your co-operation when deciding whether to charge you a penalty, and when working out how much that penalty should be. The amount of help and information you give us is entirely your choice.

When we’re considering charging penalties, you have the right under Article 6 not to answer our questions. This is sometimes called the right not to self-incriminate, or the right to silence. This right does not cover information or documents that already exist. This means you must give us information or documents that already exist if we have a legal right to ask for them.