Guidance: Make a disclosure using the Worldwide Disclosure Facility

In the offer letter section we tell you that:

• you will get an acknowledgement letter within 15 days of us receiving your completed disclosure
• we will aim to send you an intended course of action letter within 90 days of that acknowledgement

Due to an increase in the number of disclosures received, in some cases you may not receive your letters within that time. We will respond as quickly as possible.

Introduction

Over 100 countries have committed to exchange information on a multilateral basis under the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Common Reporting Standard (CRS).

The CRS increases international tax transparency.

On 31 December 2015, all HMRC offshore facilities closed. Up to that date, HMRC gave incentives to encourage people to come forward and clear up their tax affairs.

The WDF opened on 5 September 2016. On 1 October 2018, new sanctions under Requirement to Correct were introduced to reflect HMRC’s toughening approach.

If you need help

If there is anything about your health or personal circumstances that makes it difficult for you to deal with this matter, you can call the helpline. We’ll help you in whatever way we can.

Who can use the facility

Anyone who wants to disclose a UK tax liability that relates wholly or partly to an offshore issue can use the facility. An offshore issue includes unpaid or omitted tax relating to:

• income arising from a source in a territory outside the UK
• assets situated or held in a territory outside the UK
• activities carried on wholly or mainly in a territory outside the UK
• anything having effect as if it were income, assets or activities of a kind described above

It also includes funds connected to unpaid or omitted UK tax that you have transferred to a territory outside the UK or are owned in a territory outside the UK.

If at any time HMRC knows or suspects that assets or funds included in your disclosure are wholly or partly made up of criminal property, we have discretion to refuse your application to take part.

We’ll refer all disclosures made by taxpayers currently under enquiry, including all disclosure of tax avoidance schemes arrangements to the investigating officer to decide if we can accept them.

If you have made a settlement following an in-depth enquiry or disclosure before, HMRC will consider your new disclosure for further investigation and if it covers the same period, you may face a higher penalty.

If you’re unsure if you meet the eligibility criteria for the facility, you must seek professional advice.

If you’re not resident in the UK, you can still make a disclosure if you meet the eligibility criteria above.

You’ve had a letter about your money or assets abroad

You’ll need to use this facility if you get a letter about your money or assets abroad, have checked your tax affairs, and find you need to make a disclosure.

Register for the facility

Notify HMRC using the Digital Disclosure Service (DDS). You’ll need this information to notify and disclose:

• your name
• your address
• your National Insurance number
• your unique taxpayer reference, known as a ‘UTR’
• your date of birth
• the name, reference and contact details of any agent acting for you

Once you have notified us of your intention to make a disclosure, you’ll have 90 days to:

• gather the information you need to fill in your disclosure
• calculate the final liabilities including tax, duty, interest and penalties
• fill in your disclosure, using the unique disclosure reference number (DRN) we give you when you notify

You must give any extra information in support of your disclosure that we ask for. We use this to check its accuracy and completeness.

The terms of the facility

You must:

• be eligible
• make a full disclosure of all previously undisclosed UK tax liabilities
• calculate interest and penalties based on the existing legislation

If your disclosure is correct and complete and you fully co-operate by supplying any further information we ask for to check your disclosure, we’ll not seek to impose a higher penalty, except in specific circumstances. Also, we will not publish details of your disclosure.

If you fail to make a complete or accurate disclosure or refuse to send in more information, we may:

• apply a higher penalty than we would if you had provided the information voluntarily
• open a civil or criminal investigation
• publish your details on the GOV.UK website

You may still be liable to criminal prosecution.

When you make a disclosure, you’ll be invited to self-assess your behaviours. The number of years you should disclose will depend on the behaviour as the associated assessment periods are set out in statute.

The self-assessment of your behaviour is part of your disclosure and we will not guarantee the terms of the facility for inaccurate disclosures. We may conduct a further investigation of an inaccurate disclosure as part of either a civil or criminal investigation.

HMRC will reserve criminal investigations for cases where:

• we need to send a strong deterrent message
• the conduct involved is such that only a criminal sanction is appropriate

HMRC reserves complete discretion to conduct a criminal investigation in any case and to carry out these investigations across a range of offences and in all the areas for which the Commissioners of HMRC has responsibility.

If you’re unsure about how to self-assess your behaviours or calculate the number of years to disclose, you must seek professional advice.

Complete your disclosure

You should use this guidance to help you fill in your disclosure. If you’re unsure about the accuracy and completeness, you must seek professional advice.

You can discuss a complex issue, for example legal interpretation, after first notifying HMRC and getting a DRN.

Facility and terms limits

To register for the facility you must be making a disclosure of an offshore issue but if you also need to disclose onshore issues, you must do that too. This does not mean we’ll automatically charge the same penalty on onshore income or gains.

When you start the disclosure process, you’ll need to calculate what you owe for both offshore and onshore liabilities on a year by year basis depending on your behaviour.

Circumstances where a higher penalty may apply

HMRC will treat disclosures differently and we may charge a higher penalty when:

• you’re already under enquiry by HMRC
• your disclosure is connected to a previous inaccurate disclosure or settlement following an investigation
• you do not follow the existing legislation on calculating penalties

How to make a notification and disclosure to HMRC

Notify

You must tell HMRC of your intention to make a disclosure. Do this as soon as you become aware that you owe tax on undeclared offshore income or gains.

The following customers can make a disclosure:

• as an individual, about your:
  • own tax affairs
  • company’s tax affairs, which includes where you’re a director or company secretary
  • trust or estate
• on behalf of someone else, for example, if you’re a tax adviser, a personal representative or an executor of an estate

You cannot include details for more than one person or company on a disclosure. For example, if a husband and wife both have undisclosed income they must both complete separate disclosures, each showing the share of the income they need to disclose.

We need a separate notification for each person. In a similar way, if we need a disclosure for a company and for a director, this should be on 2 separate disclosures.

Individuals and companies

Individuals and companies can notify by completing the DDS form. HMRC will write to you to tell you your unique DRN. Use this whenever you contact them about the WDF.

You’ll also be given a Payment Reference Number (PRN) to use when paying what you owe.

Agents

Agents should use the DDS to notify HMRC of your clients’ disclosure. We’ll then send you out a disclosure reference and a payment reference.

Your client can use form COMP1a to allow us to deal directly with you about a disclosure made using the DDS.

Unless you have all details to hand, you do not need to give any details of the undisclosed income or the tax you think you owe at the time you notify.

Telephone HMRC’s Offshore Disclosure Facility if you no longer need to make a disclosure after you have notified us.

Make a disclosure for someone who’s died

If you want to make a disclosure for someone who’s died and you’re the personal representative or executor of the deceased, or their interests, you can do this using the DDS.

Make sure it’s clear that you’re notifying on someone else’s behalf. We may ask for more evidence that you’re authorised to act for them.

Disclosure

You must make your disclosure within 90 days after getting the notification acknowledgement quoting your DRN.

You can make a disclosure:

A requirement of the terms of the facility includes payment of the full disclosure amount at the time of submission. You’ll be given details of how to pay when completing your disclosure.

If you cannot pay what you owe immediately you need to agree paying arrangements by contacting HMRC before submitting your disclosure.

How to complete your disclosure

If you tell us that your disclosure includes offshore liabilities, you’ll need to complete the following on the form:

• whether your disclosure was prompted by a letter from HMRC
• your DRN
• in what capacity you’re completing your disclosure
• the designatory details of who the disclosure relates to
• your contact details if you’re completing the disclosure for someone else

You may need to register for Self Assessment or complete tax returns for future years not included in this disclosure.

You’ll be asked to make a commitment that you:

• understand you’re expected to make a full disclosure and you intend to do so
• acknowledge that a false disclosure could result in a prosecution

You can make a disclosure for all tax years up to and including 2020 to 2021. If we’ve sent you a tax return for that year or any tax year from 2018 to 2019 onwards which is still outstanding, you must complete the return and do not include these tax years on this disclosure form.

You’ll need to self-assess your behaviour which will indicate the number of years you need to disclose.

Select all the options that apply where you have:

• failed to notify HMRC about a tax liability but this was not deliberate and you have a reasonable excuse
• submitted an inaccurate return despite taking reasonable care
• not filed a return but have a reasonable excuse
• submitted an inaccurate return because you did not take enough care
• failed to notify HMRC of a tax liability but this was not deliberate and you do not have a reasonable excuse
• deliberately failed to notify HMRC of a tax liability
• deliberately submitted an inaccurate tax return or deliberately withheld information by failing to submit a return

If you’re unsure which behaviour option applies to you, you must seek professional advice. The self-assessment of behaviour is an integral part of your disclosure and an incomplete or incorrect self-assessment may lead to a civil intervention or criminal prosecution.

Based on your selection, you’ll be presented with the years this disclosure relates to and you must select all that apply.

You’ll then need to calculate the total income and gains that you’re disclosing across all taxes. Enter the combined total under income or gains on the form.

If you’re unsure if a source of income or gain is taxable you must seek professional advice.

If your records are not complete, estimate as accurately as you can any income or expenses that you do not hold a record of. Keep copies of your calculations as we may ask to see how you have worked these out.

You must give a description of the income or gain. Enter the largest or most frequently occurring source if there are multiple entries.

You’ll need to calculate the total tax and duty due for each tax year selected. We cannot give individual advice on calculating how much you owe.

You must enter the combined total under ‘Tax’ on the form. If you’re unsure how to calculate your income and liabilities, you must seek professional advice.

You’ll need to calculate interest on all unpaid tax liabilities included in your disclosure. Interest is charged on the full amount of tax you owe in accordance with UK law. Interest runs from the date when the tax should have been paid until the date of payment. Interest is calculated on a daily basis.

Use the current and previous interest rates that apply to late payment of tax.

You should consider payments on account when making your calculation.

Enter the combined total in your disclosure. If you’re unsure how to calculate your interest you must seek professional advice.

You may find the calculators on HMRC: disclosure service useful.

You must calculate the penalty on all unpaid tax and duty liabilities included in your disclosure.

Offshore penalties

Income Tax and Capital Gains Tax for offshore matters

The penalties for Income Tax and Capital Gains Tax for offshore matters factsheet tells you about the higher penalties HMRC may charge.

In specific circumstances it may not be appropriate to allow you the full reductions for disclosure.

For example, you cannot expect HMRC to agree a full reduction for disclosure if you:

• have taken a significant period to correct your non-compliance
• could have previously made a disclosure through one of HMRC’s offshore facilities

In these cases it’s unlikely that HMRC will reduce your penalty by more than 10 percentage points above the minimum of the statutory range. HMRC would normally consider a ‘significant period’ to be over 3 years, or less where the overall disclosure covers a longer period.

You’ll need to check the classification of territories for the purposes of offshore penalties. You should consider any territory not classified in category 1 or 3 under category 2.

Enter each calculated penalty rate for each year of disclosure, and the penalty due per year will be calculated automatically following the entry of the liability under tax on the form.

When you have calculated your offshore liabilities you need to calculate any onshore liabilities for each year disclosed. Calculate your penalty for each year and your behaviour using the guidance for:

As you’re making a disclosure, it is you (rather than a compliance officer), who must consider and calculate any penalties in the way the factsheets describe.

Your rights when considering penalties

When considering if you need to pay a penalty in connection with your disclosure, Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights gives you certain rights.

You have the right:

• to seek help from a professional adviser
• to have the matter of penalties dealt with without unreasonable delay
• not to incriminate yourself

If you decide that a penalty is due as part of this disclosure opportunity, by making the disclosure about penalties, you will be giving up your right to silence under Article 6. This means we can use anything you decide to tell us when considering your liability to penalties.

The extent to which you co-operate with HMRC and answer our questions about penalties, will still be for you to decide.

Legal interpretation

You must tell us if you have reduced the amount of your disclosure because of consideration and interpretation of the law.

Enter all circumstances that apply. The response is an integral part of your disclosure and an inaccurate or incorrect response may lead to a civil intervention or criminal prosecution.

Choose from the following:

• residence status for tax purposes in the UK
• domicile status for UK tax purposes
• the remittance basis for taxing income for people not domiciled in the UK
• how income arising in a trust was taxed
• Inheritance Tax issues
• the Transfer of Assets legislation at sections 714-751 Income Tax Act (ITA) 2007 counteracts avoidance by individuals who use overseas arrangements, companies, trusts or other entities to reduce UK tax liability
• how income arising in an offshore corporate structure was taxed, calculating liabilities for corporate structures and their complexity is too varied for specific guidance
• your income was taxed under the settlements legislation at section 624 and what follows Income Tax Trading and Other Income Act (ITTOIA) 2005, this legislation applies where an individual gains a tax advantage by making arrangements to divert income to another person who’s liable at a lower rate of tax or is not liable to Income Tax

You must seek professional advice if you’re unsure if these apply to you.

If none of the above apply but you have made an adjustment to the amount of the liabilities in your disclosure, you can record the details at ‘other issues’ on the form.

You must enter the maximum value of assets you hold outside the UK at any point over the last 5 years. Calculate this from the date of your disclosure. This may include:

• cash
• bank and other savings accounts
• other accounts such as stockbroker or solicitors and so on
• trusts
• debts owed to you
• other bond deposits and loans
• government securities
• stocks and shares
• life assurance policies and pensions
• land and buildings including holiday timeshare and so on
• vehicles
• caravans
• boats
• art and antiques
• gold and silver articles
• jewellery
• collections for investment

All valuations must be in pounds sterling. You must convert any non-pounds sterling assets using these exchange rates.

For earlier years, you should refer to the archive rates.

Enter all asset valuations that apply, the valuation is an integral part of your disclosure. If you’re unsure how to value your assets, speak to your professional adviser.

An inaccurate or incorrect valuation may lead to a civil intervention or criminal prosecution.

Choose the main jurisdiction in which your offshore assets were located or income arose from, this will be a 3-digit code. You can enter a maximum of 3 jurisdictions you have multiple sources of income or assets.

Complex issues and pre-disclosure agreement

If your disclosure is complex, you can request 90 extra days from notification in which to make your disclosure, giving up to 180 days in total. Contact HMRC if you wish to request this extra time.

You can get help on complex issues before submitting your disclosure by contacting HMRC or reading the relevant guidance.

If you still need help after this, you can use the non-statutory clearance process to seek agreement as to the correct treatment to apply in your disclosure.

We have a clearance route that you can only use if you have already registered to make a disclosure of offshore liabilities through the DDS.

When you make your application you’ll be contacted by a HMRC specialist in an attempt to clarify the matter.

If you make a non-statutory clearance application you’ll have 90 days from the time that your clearance application is finalised to submit your final disclosure.

Other liabilities (not included in the disclosure)

If you need to disclose VAT liabilities, make sure you tick the box for this on your disclosure.

If you or your partner are receiving tax credits or have received tax credits in any of the years you have included in your disclosure you should still make a disclosure but also tick the appropriate box on the disclosure form.

The information will be passed to the relevant department to consider. You’ll be notified separately of any changes that may be required to the amount of tax credits you receive or have received for the relevant years.

Some Inheritance Tax disclosures can be for more than 20 years. Liabilities for more than 20 years ago cannot be disclosed using the DDS.

If you have liabilities for a period longer than 20 years ago, contact the Offshore Disclosure Facility.

Offer letter

It’s a condition of using this facility that you make an offer for the full amount of taxes, duties, interest and penalties you owe.

You’ll get an acknowledgement from HMRC within 15 days of us getting your completed disclosure. We’ll aim to tell you of the intended course of action within 90 days of the acknowledgement.

It may be necessary for HMRC to ask you to give appropriate evidence to make sure that your disclosure is accurate and complete.

If you fail to co-operate this may prejudice our acceptance of your offer and may also result in the terms not applying.

We expect the majority of disclosures to be accepted without an in depth enquiry.

If we cannot accept your disclosure we’ll:

• open an enquiry or resume any existing enquiry
• write to you for further information or explanations as provided for in existing legislation

Payment methods

When you notify HMRC of your intention to disclose, you’ll be sent unique DRN and PRN. You must use these in all further correspondence relating to your disclosure.

You’ll be given details of how to pay when completing your disclosure. If you cannot pay what you owe immediately, you’ll need to contact the Offshore Disclosure Facility to agree paying arrangements before submitting your disclosure.

You must make full payment in accordance with your disclosure on the same date that your disclosure is submitted.

If you cannot fulfil your obligation by making a full payment in accordance with your disclosure or on the ‘time to pay’ terms agreed with HMRC, we may take action to recover what you owe.

Further information and declaration

We’ll ask you for details of how you became aware of making a disclosure and ask you to add any media code you were asked to quote if applicable, before confirming that the disclosure is correct and complete.

If you’re unsure if your disclosure is correct and complete you must seek professional advice.

We’ll also ask some extra questions as to the circumstances that led you to making this disclosure.

We’ll send you an email when you notify online and agree to an electronic acknowledgement.