Introduction Background Note
20.Large companies make a major contribution to the Exchequer. Inadequate tax accounting arrangements within such companies (or groups) can lead to misreporting of tax liabilities of very large amounts.
21.Currently, there is no legal obligation on any particular director or company officer to ensure that the company has appropriate tax accounting arrangements. This section and Schedule will make the senior accounting officer of a company personally responsible for doing so.
22.Ensuring appropriate tax accounting arrangements are in place is no more than compliant companies will be doing already. The requirement on senior accounting officers to take reasonable steps to ensure appropriate tax accounting should in most instances merely underpin that good practice.
23.Where large companies have not established appropriate tax accounting arrangements to enable accurate tax reporting, tax is at risk. Senior accounting officers of such companies will be required by this section to take appropriate action to remedy that situation.