The taxpayer enjoyed mixed success in an application for late appeals – Contractors Support Ltd v HMRC [2023] UKFTT 744 (TC).
The FTT held that the appellant had made an in-time appeal against the information notice.
However, the tribunal also held that the information notice requested certain statutory information against which the appellant had no right of appeal. The FTT also decided, on balance, that it should reject the late appeal against the penalty notice, as below (but with paragraph breaks added for greater clarity):
“In my view the delay is not serious and significant but does require to be explained. I do not think that the explanations given by the appellant are particularly meritorious for the reasons I have expressed above. The appellant is not an innocent abroad when it comes to the tax system. It holds itself out as having the competencies of dealing, regularly, with HMRC. It was capable of appealing against the information notice without professional advice, so I can see no reason why it was not capable of appealing against the penalty notice without such advice. Nor can I see why it took two months from the date of the notice on 19 August 2022 until the appeal was made by the appellant’s agent on 27 October 2022.
Statutory time limits should be respected, and the appellant was fully aware that there was a statutory time limit to appeal against the penalty notice as it was clearly set out in words of one syllable in the penalty notice itself. And this is irrespective of the fact that an organisation which holds itself out as competent to deal with HMRC on matters such as enquiries, could, and should, know not only of the time limit itself, but that it should be respected. This failure to respect the time limit outweighs, in my view, any prejudice that will be caused to the appellant by rejecting its application.
There are no obvious strengths to the appellant’s position. However, that is compensated for by the fact that there are no obvious strengths to HMRC’s position. Nor do I think that HMRC have made out much of a case that it will be prejudiced (and indeed other more compliant taxpayers will be prejudiced) if I allow the appellant to appeal out of time. But the amount at stake is modest (£300) and in the context of the issues which I have discussed above, means that when undertaking the balancing exercise, I am unable to find that the prejudice which would be caused to the appellant by denying the application is sufficient to outweigh the lack of meritorious reasons for the delay.”
https://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKFTT/TC/2023/TC08924.html
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In Schedule 36 Notices – HMRC Information Requests, tax barrister Keith Gordon encourages full compliance with legitimate requests from HMRC but also recommends that taxpayers should stand up to requests that do not meet the strict statutory criteria. The author reminds professional advisers of the risks of providing more information than the law requires.
