A Personal Liability Notice (PLN) can be issued by HMRC to a company’s director(s) to transfer the liability to pay VAT or a VAT penalty from the company to an individual. A PLN can also be issued to a member of an LLP.

When a PLN is issued

An officer or officers of a company may be personally liable to pay all or part of the company penalty where:

• a company is liable to a penalty for a deliberate wrongdoing and
• the wrongdoing is attributable to the deliberate action of an officer or officers of the company

Additionally, one of the two circumstances below must also apply

• the officer gained or attempted to gain personally from the wrongdoing, or
• the company is insolvent or likely to become insolvent

Any grounds for suspicion that the company may become insolvent should to be supported by evidence, for example, where there are cash flow problems, insufficient assets to cover liabilities, or evidence of phoenixism.

An officer’s liability to pay a penalty also applies to inaccuracy penalties.

Liable persons

The company officers are known in HMRC guidance as “liable officers”. These include:

• elected officers
• managers
• directors
• company secretary
• any other person managing or purporting to manage any of the company’s affairs.

LLP officers are members.

A PLN’s power gives HMRC the right to recover all or part of the penalty from the liable officer rather than the company/LLP itself.

Where there is more than one deliberate wrongdoing, each deliberate wrongdoing must be considered separately for the purpose of establishing whether it should be attributed to an officer or officers.

Wrongdoings

There are four types of wrongdoings:

• the issue of an invoice showing VAT by an unauthorised person
• misuse of a product so that it attracts a higher rate of excise duty
• the handling of goods on which payment of excise duty is outstanding
• knowingly disposing of, or causing or permitting the disposal of, material at an unauthorised waste site

The wrongdoing must arise from the deliberate action of an officer of the company.

Personal gain

Once HMRC has attributed the deliberate wrongdoing to one or more company officers it must consider whether any of the officers, by fact or implication, have gained or attempted to gain personally from the wrongdoing. It is sufficient to show that each officer has gained or attempted to gain. It will not however always be possible to establish the full extent to which each officer has gained or attempted to gain, in which case HMRC would issue the PLN based on best judgment of the amount they attempted to gain personally, eg:

• the officer may accept that there was an actual or attempted personal gain from a deliberate wrongdoing that can be attributed to them, or
• it may be clear from business records or the officer’s lifestyle that they gained or attempted to gain personally from the results of the deliberate wrongdoing

Appeals

A liable officer can appeal against

• a decision to pursue them for all or part of the penalty assessed on the company, as set out in the PLN, including whether the penalty is attributable to them, and
• the amount of the penalty HMRC has allocated to them
• They cannot however appeal against a decision that they have gained or attempted to gain personally from the deliberate wrongdoing, or that the company is likely to go into liquidation

PLNs are subject to the same procedures as company penalties.

Legislation

Finance Act 2008, Schedule 41: Penalties: failure to notify and certain VAT and Excise wrongdoing.