HMRC: Proposed Financial Institution Notice

Recently, the Government published the Finance Bill 2020/21 and introduced the Financial Institution Notice (FIN). HMRC will be able to demand banks and other financial institutions give them details about individual taxpayers ...

HMRC will use FINs to check individuals tax position and help with debt collection, although they must give the taxpayer good reason why the information is needed, except where a tax tribunal rules this condition does not apply.

"They do need the agreement of the taxpayer before issuing a FIN!"

Any information HMRC gains must be used to check the tax position of an individual taxpayer. If the request is international, the FIN must be relevant to the collection of tax in that particular overseas juristiction and all domestic routes for getting the information have been exhausted.

Financial Institution Notices can also be issued to credit card companies with the same legal force as banks and should they fail to comply with the demand, HMRC can charge them penalties for non-compliance.

HMRC hopes that FINs will reduce the amount of time needed to deal with the international exchange of information, bringing the UK in line with international standards on tax transparency.

This currently takes around 12-months where the international target is set at six.

If you'd like to find out more about anything I've written here, do call me on 01908 774323 or leave a comment below and let's see how I can help you.