Disclosure of Tax Avoidance Schemes (DOTAS) - overview

Over many years, successive Governments have introduced measures to curb what they have seen as being unacceptable tax avoidance. This is different to tax evasion, where sums or sources of income or gains are concealed or omitted from a taxpayer’s returns. Avoidance is where the taxpayer uses the way in which tax law, or a combination of tax laws, works to achieve a tax advantage, such as minimising or delaying tax bills (or maximising or accelerating a tax repayment) - otherwise than where the legislation in question was introduced with the aim of delivering that tax advantage.

In addition to the inclusion of numerous specific anti-avoidance provisions design to stop identified avoidance schemes, the UK tax code includes several wider anti-avoidance tools:

• •the regime for Disclosure of Tax Avoidance Schemes (DOTAS) - aimed at providing HMRC with early intelligence about avoidance
• •the General Anti-Abuse Rule (GAAR) - aimed at counteracting any tax advantage delivered by avoidance not caught by more specific measures
• •accelerated tax payments
• •the regime for Promoters of Tax Avoidance Schemes (POTAS) - aimed at changing the behaviour of agents who offer high-risk avoidance schemes to their clients

The Government has also published draft legislation to impose further sanctions for tax avoidance (following on from a consultation on Strengthening Sanctions for Tax Avoidance - a consultation on detailed proposals ). Those proposals are in three parts:

• •measures to deter serial tax avoiders 
• •a penalty regime for the GAAR 
• •proposals to extend the threshold for the POTAS regime 

These proposals will be included in Finance Bill 2016 and will not be fully incorporated into our guidance