Income and Corporation Taxes Act 1988

2B (1) An inspector may, at any time after the end of the closing year for that year of assessment, by notice in writing to the members’ agent require him to deliver to the inspector, on or before the final day determined under sub-paragraph (3) below, a return of the member’s profit for the year of assessment in respect of those syndicates in relation to which he is the members’ agent of the member—

(a) containing such information as may be required in pursuance of the notice, and

(b) accompanied by such statements and reports as may be so required, and

(c) containing a statement of the amount of tax which would be payable on that profit if income tax were payable on the whole of it at the basic rate in force for the year of assessment.

(2) For the purposes of the return by the members’ agent of the member’s profit—

(a) there shall be added to that profit an amount representing the depreciation in value for the year of assessment of assets forming part of a premiums trust fund, and

(b) there may be deducted from that profit—

(i) an amount representing the appreciation in value for the year of assessment of assets forming part of a premiums trust fund.

(ii) an amount in respect of disbursements and expenses wholly and exclusively laid out for the purposes of the member’s underwriting business, and of any premium paid by the member on an insurance against losses in his underwriting business, where that amount is claimed in the member’s return for the year of assessment as being deductible from that profit.

(3) The final day for the delivery of any return required by a notice under sub-paragraph (1) above is whichever is the later of—

(a) 1st October in the year of assessment following the closing year for the year of assessment; and

(b) the end of the period of three months beginning on the day following that on which the notice was served.

(4) If the members’ agent, having been required by a notice under sub-paragraph (1) above to deliver a return, fails to deliver the return on or before the final day for its delivery, he shall be liable to a penalty equal to the prescribed amount multiplied by the number of days on which the failure continues; and in this sub-paragraph “the prescribed amount” means £60 for each fifty members for whom he acts and in respect of whom there is such a failure (counting any number of such members less than fifty, and any number left over, as fifty).

(5) If the members’ agent fraudulently or negligently delivers an incorrect return under sub-paragraph (1) above, he shall be liable to a penalty not exceeding the prescribed amount multiplied by the number of members for whom he acts and in respect of whose returns there is such fraud or negligence; and in this sub-paragraph “the prescribed amount” means £3,000.

(6) In relation to a return required by a notice under sub-paragraph (1) above—

(a) any reference in sub-paragraph (1) or (3) above to the delivery of the return is a reference to its delivery together with the accompanying documents referred to in sub-paragraph (1) above; and

(b) the reference in sub-paragraph (5) above to the return being incorrect includes a reference to any of those documents being incorrect.