# Finance Act 2011, Paragraph 34


(1) Liability to a penalty under paragraph 30 or 31 does not arise if the data-holder satisfies HMRC or (on an appeal notified to the tribunal) the tribunal that there is a reasonable excuse for the failure.
(2) For the purposes of this paragraph—
(a) an insufficiency of funds is not a reasonable excuse unless attributable to events outside the data-holder's control,
(b) if the data-holder relies on another person to do anything, that is not a reasonable excuse unless the data-holder took reasonable care to avoid the failure,
(c) if the data-holder had a reasonable excuse for the failure but the excuse has ceased, the data-holder is to be treated as having continued to have the excuse if the failure is remedied without unreasonable delay after the excuse ceased.

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Source: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2011/11/schedule/23/paragraph/34 (the official version)
Page: https://openlegislation.uk/finance-act-2011/schedule-23/paragraph-34
Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Source: legislation.gov.uk, The National Archives.