HMRC removes email submission for offshore-promoter AAG2 disclosures

HMRC has removed the option to email form AAG2GOV, used by people disclosing notifiable tax avoidance arrangements where an offshore promoter has not notified HMRC. The form-specific instructions now direct users to complete the form on screen, print it and post it to HMRCGOV. Advisers preparing these disclosures should build printing and postal submission into their filing process.

AAG2 concerns the scheme user's disclosure where the promoter is offshore. Section 309 applies to a client who enters into any transaction forming part of notifiable arrangements where a promoter is resident outside the United Kingdom and no promoter is resident in the United Kingdom. Compliance by any promoter with the relevant promoter notification duty discharges the client's duty. The offshore connection alone therefore does not establish that the user still has to notify.

For a section 309(1) disclosure, regulation 5(6) prescribes a 5-day notification period. That period starts the day AFTER the client enters into the first transaction forming part of the relevant notifiable arrangements. Non-business days are disregarded in calculating that period. The move to the postal instructions makes the preparation and submission stages particularly relevant to advisers handling a disclosure within that timetable.

HMRC instructs users: “You’ll need to fill in the form fully before you can print it.” A partly completed form cannot be saved, so users need to gather their information before starting. The separate option to email HMRC to request the form in Welsh remains in the instructions; that is a request for the Welsh form, rather than the removed email submission option.

There is a discrepancy between HMRC's instructions: its broader guide, Forms to disclose tax avoidance schemes, still lists AAG2 under electronic disclosures as well as postal disclosuresGOV. The AAG2-specific instructions now describe the print-and-post route. Practitioners should follow those specific instructions when preparing this form and distinguish them from the broader guide's electronic listing.

The legal basis for the user's disclosure is Finance Act 2004, section 309, with the timing and non-business-day rules in the Tax Avoidance Schemes (Information) Regulations 2012, regulations 5(6) and 2(3).