HMRC Personal Liability Notice

Simon Burn Solicitors are specialist litigation solicitors with particular expertise in defending individuals who have been threatened with Personal Liability Notices ("PLN"). We have expertise in assisting clients at all stages in the PLN process from responding to requests from HMRC, advising in connection with PLNs and defending clients.

If you have been served with a PLN then you will be acutely aware of the draconian nature of a PLN. The notice makes you personally liable for a company's unpaid National Insurance Contributions ("NIC") together with any penalties and interest. Effectively you lose the protection of limited liability status and personally owe any unpaid NIC directly to HMRC. This means HMRC can take your assets or even bankrupt you.

HMRC carry out an investigation before issuing a Personal Liability Notice. Although there is no legal requirement to assist HMRC at that stage, it is important that your interactions with HMRC are properly managed. Obviously HMRC only have a limited amount of information at their disposal and sometimes it is possible to put forward information which leads to a decision being taken not to take any action on the PLN. By not cooperating there is also the risk that if your side of the story is not put forward you could be unfairly blamed for things that are other people’s fault.

It is essential that you take advice from experienced solicitors as soon as possible in order to maximise your chances in either persuading HMRC not to issue a PLN or to resolve any threatened PLNs on the best possible terms.

Although HMRC have had the power under Section 64 of the Social Security Act 1998 since 6 April 1999 to recover NIC from the officers of a company, it is a power that has been little used in the past. With increasing pressure on public finances however it seems that HMRC are more willing to exercise their power under Section 64 of the Social Security Act 1998 which is why it is more important than ever to take proper advice from proactive expert solicitors who have expertise in these issues.

If you have been served with a Personal Liability Notice and require urgent independent advice or wish to discuss a request for information that you have from HMRC please contact Simon Burn on 01242 228 444 or 0121 371 0301 for a no obligation discussion.

Whatever the situation you are in, it is important that you take expert advice as soon as possible if threatened with such a notice.

Please contact us by email or telephone for immediate advice. Our telephone lines are answered 24 hours a day 7 days a week to enable us to provide urgent advice when you need it.