Late Income Tax Returns - What penalties

jockey#1

Helping a family member out with two year's late income tax returns (2007 & 2008) On the notice of assessments I know the surcharge will be 10% for each year. What will the other penalties be i.e at what rates etc?

Family member has no money whatsoever. What we hope to do is agree an installment arrangement with the Revenue but for them to waive any possible interest and penalties besides the late surcharges. Do we have any hope?

Thanks

Jockey

nompere

Nothing is ever really cut and dried when negotiating with Revenue, but ...

Getting surcharges waived is quite common - indeed it's the norm in formal audit cases for the penalties to cover any surcharges. In other cases an apologetic letter and a promise to behave in future usually gets surcharges written off.

If you go to Revenue before they get to you - unprompted voluntary disclosure it's called - penalties will be minimal, quite possibly as low as 3%.

Getting Revenue to write off interest on late tax is hard - Revenue get pilloried regularly by regulatory bodies for doing this. They often state they have no statutory authority to waive interest.

I have known of cases involving instalment arrangements where Revenue have forgotten to charge interest.

All this supposes that you are filling in form 11. If you're doing form 12 for a mostly PAYE person then I've never seen a surcharge on a balancing statement. Nor have I seen any penalties, or indeed interest.