Isle Of Man Amends Late-Filing Penalties

by Jason Gorringe, Tax-News.com, London

04 August 2010

The Isle of Man government has announced that it is to amend the penalties regime, introduced in 2005, and last revised in 2006. The changes are to relate to late-filing offences in particular.

According to the consultation paper, the government proposes to amend the Financial Services (Civil Penalties) Regulations 2008 to introduce a few minor amendments to the structure of the island’s penalties regime, and increase penalties for filing delays.

The amendments will:

• Widen the application of the penalties to cover former, as well as current licenceholders;
Apply penalties to one extra return and remove the sanction from one return;
• Split the penalties band for 1 to 20 days into one band for 1 to 4 days and a separate band for 5 to 20 days after the due date;
• Increase the amounts of penalties payable for delays of 5 or more days. Penalties for significant delays will be markedly increased; and
• Impose higher penalties on Class 1 licenceholders (for delays of 5 or more days) than on other classes of licenseholders.

It is proposed that the amendments will be presented to the Isle of Man parliament, the Tynwald, for approval in the autumn and will come into force on January 1, 2011.

The closing date for comments is September 10, 2010.

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