The above newly launched consultation describes options for improving public information about tax avoidance schemes and the risks of using them.

HMRC is also seeking views as to whether there are options for:

• extending the DOTAS information to be reported to HMRC, and
• ensuring that persons required to disclose a scheme do so at the right time;

HMRC also seeks responses as to whether proposals to revise and extend the DOTAS ‘hallmarks’ (the descriptions of schemes required to be disclosed for income tax, capital gains tax and corporation tax purposes) are too widely or narrowly drawn, and on their impacts upon compliance costs and administrative burdens.

Headline options include:

• Extending the information disclosed to HMRC about discloseable avoidance schemes;
• Extending the information reported to HMRC about users and other parties involved in a discloseable avoidance scheme;
• Raising the threshold of ‘reasonable excuse’ for a promoter who fails to notify a discloseable scheme;
• Imposing additional reporting obligations on a promoter who incurs a penalty for failure to disclose a scheme; and
• Imposing a personal responsibility on an individual, to sit alongside the firm's obligations, to comply with a promoter's DOTAS obligations.

Chapter 5 of the consultation describes proposed revisions and extensions to the existing ‘hallmarks’, the descriptions of schemes required to be disclosed under the ‘main regime’ of income tax, capital gains tax and corporation tax. The proposed revisions to existing hallmarks are:

• Amending the ‘confidentiality where promoter involved’ hallmark to remove inconsistencies in the interpretations being applied by promoters to the hallmark;
• Amending the ‘confidentiality where no promoter involved’ hallmark to cover instances where the firm designing the scheme for use in-house is also a promoter who is capable of selling the scheme to clients; and
• Amending the ‘loss scheme’ hallmark to ensure that marketed loss schemes are discloseable, and extending the hallmark (currently limited to schemes intended for individuals) to schemes for corporate users.

The consultation also proposes adding two new hallmarks:

• A hallmark that targets schemes seeking to circumvent the disguised remuneration rules concerning employment income provided via intermediaries; and
• A hallmark targeting schemes that rely upon certain financial products.

The consultation document is published on HMRC website with responses required by 15 October.

The above consultation is in addition to proposals to introduce an anti-abuse rule for the UK. However, this increasing pressure on tax avoidance is not isolated to the UK alone. Authorities around the world, particularly in Europe and the US, are taking progressively tough stances on the perceived tax avoider (as well as tax evaders).