Under the new rules, now out in draft legislation, any promotor who is given a legal notice to cease promotion of schemes from HMRC, known as a Stop Notice, would face criminal charges under a new strict liability offence.

Conviction would result in an unlimited fine as well as a potential prison term of up to two years.

This would be the case regardless of any dispute about the effectiveness of the tax scheme between HMRC and the scheme users. If the promoter continued to promote a scheme covered by a Stop Notice that the courts subsequently found did not break tax rules, ‘the criminal offence would have already been committed’, the policy paper clearly states.

This follows more than a year of publication of the names of egregious promoters of tax schemes, with some individuals appearing on the list on multiple occasions, illustrating how the naming and shaming exercise was not working.