Revenue Scotland and Tax Powers Act 2014

214 Reasonable excuse for failure to register for tax etc.

(1) If P satisfies Revenue Scotland or (on appeal) the tribunal that there is a reasonable excuse for a failure to comply with a relevant requirement, liability to a penalty under section 209 does not arise in relation to that failure.

(2) For the purposes of subsection (1)—

(a) an insufficiency of funds is not a reasonable excuse unless attributable to events outside P’s control,

(b) where P relies on any other person to do anything, that is not a reasonable excuse unless P took reasonable care to avoid the failure, and

(c) where P had a reasonable excuse for the failure but the excuse has ceased, P is to be treated as having continued to have the excuse if the failure is remedied without unreasonable delay after the excuse ceased.