Value Added Tax Act 1994 Schedule 13 paragraphs 11–18

Offences and penalties

Schedule 13 paragraphs 11 to 18 set out transitional rules governing how the offence, penalty, surcharge and interest provisions of the VAT Act 1994 apply to events that took place before the Act commenced or before earlier key dates.

• Continuing offences originally committed under earlier repealed legislation can still be prosecuted under the 1994 Act as though they had been committed under its equivalent provision.
• Most penalty provisions in Part IV of the Act do not apply to acts or omissions before 25 July 1985, although the criminal offence provision in section 72 can reach back further — with reduced maximum sentences for offences between July 1983 and July 1985.
• The default surcharge (section 59), misdeclaration penalty (section 63), repeated misdeclaration penalty (section 64) and penalty mitigation rules (section 70) are each subject to detailed transitional modifications — generally applying higher thresholds, different penalty periods or different calculation methods — for accounting periods or assessments before specified dates in the early-to-mid 1990s.
• Statutory interest on VAT recovered by assessment (section 74) does not apply to accounting periods beginning before 1 April 1990, and its subsection (3) does not apply to interest on amounts assessed or paid before 1 October 1993.