Commentary on Sections Overview Overview Section 81: Giving a counteraction notice
189.This section is the first of a group of anti-avoidance sections directed against schemes and arrangements designed to increase DTR. It enables an officer of Revenue and Customs to activate these anti-avoidance provisions by giving a counteraction notice. It is based on sections 804ZA(1), (8) and (11A) and 831(5) of ICTA and section 277(1) of TCGA.
190.Section 804ZA of ICTA gives this function to the Commissioners for HMRC. In practice, the Commissioners delegate this function to officers of Revenue and Customs, and subsections (1) and (2) reflect this. This is a minor change in the law: see Change 2 in Annex 1. The Commissioners delegate the function of giving counteraction notices to a group of specialist officers; Change 2 makes no change to this practice.
191.Section 703 of ICTA (transactions in securities) gave the function of giving counteraction notices to the Board. Rewriting this for income tax purposes, Chapter 1 of Part 13 of ITA gives this function to officers of Revenue and Customs, and the same change in the law is made in Part 15 of CTA 2010 which rewrites section 703 of ICTA for corporation tax purposes. This Change is also made in Part 6 of this Act (tax arbitrage). Change 2 in this section is consistent with this approach.
192.As Change 2 is made in this section, it is also made in sections 89, 91 and 92.