Finance Act 2016

Reasonable excuse

22 (1) If a person who has incurred a relevant defeat satisfies HMRC or, on an appeal under paragraph 24, the First-tier Tribunal or Upper Tribunal that the person had a reasonable excuse for the matters to which that relevant defeat relates, then—

(a) for the purposes of paragraph 19(1)(a) and 21(2) and (5), the person is treated as not having incurred that relevant defeat, and

(b) for the purposes of paragraph 19(1)(b) and (c) any warning notice given to the person which relates to that relevant defeat is treated as not having been given to the person.

(2) For the purposes of this paragraph, in the case of a person (“P”)—

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

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

(c) where P had reasonable excuse for the relevant failure but the excuse had 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.

(3) In determining for the purposes of this paragraph whether or not a person (“P”) had a reasonable excuse for any action, failure or inaccuracy, reliance on advice is to be taken automatically not to constitute a reasonable excuse if the advice is addressed to, or was given to, a person other than P or takes no account of P’s individual circumstances.

(4) In this paragraph “relevant failure”, in relation to a relevant defeat, is to be interpreted in accordance with sub-paragraphs (2) to (7) of paragraph 43.