BN66 - Round 2 (Court of Appeal)

[PlaneSailing]

So you mean to tell me they could if they wanted to stop this at their discretion!! I thought they were duty bound to pursue this

Seems not.

[Emigre]

How were we supposed to know. First I heard of it being a problem was when I received the letter from MP. All of my returns had been accepted. I got a closure notice eventually.

Hi Slobbo

Please confirm that your returns for however many years were accepted. What I mean is did HMRC open enquiries into individual years on a timely basis? Or not? You cannot have a closure notice unless your return is under investigation and would thus be "not accepted".

We are looking for examples of people who have had their returns accepted and closed, without investigation or reopening under "discovery". Hope you can help!

Thanks

[Emigre]

So you mean to tell me they could if they wanted to stop this at their discretion!! I thought they were duty bound to pursue this

Depends which party you voted for.

[smalldog]

Depends which party you voted for.

Im not completely convinced I received letters from HMRC for every year I was in the scheme saying they didnt accept my SA. Is there anyway I can find out without phoning them??

[loser]

confused...

Im not completely convinced I received letters from HMRC for every year I was in the scheme saying they didnt accept my SA. Is there anyway I can find out without phoning them??

I'm confused. Is it the case that HMRC should have confirmrd to me each yeat that my returns were not accepted? I was in the scheme from 2003, but didn't get anything from them at all re.non-acceptance until Feb 2009 - a closure notice for 2003,with a warning that others would be following - yet to be received.

Is this typical???

[DonkeyRhubarb]

I'm confused. Is it the case that HMRC should have confirmrd to me each yeat that my returns were not accepted? I was in the scheme from 2003, but didn't get anything from them at all re.non-acceptance until Feb 2009 - a closure notice for 2003,with a warning that others would be following - yet to be received.

Is this typical???

OK, this is how it is supposed to work. Let's take tax year 2003/4 as an example.

The SA deadline is 31st Jan 2005. HMRC then have 12 months to open an enquiry under Code of Practice 8 ie. by 31st Jan 2006.

In some cases, they have opened enquiries beyond the 12 month limit under a provision known as "discovery". The argument they gave for doing this was that there was not enough information on the return to allow a full assessment. Montp believe this was complete bollox but I digress.

I know of other people, like yourself, who have received CNs without any prior COP8 enquiry notices whatsoever. It was bad enough HMRC using the ruse of "discovery" to get around the 12 month limit but this is seriously taking the piss.

If we eventually lose the case then all of these breaches of procedure will be open to challenge in the Tax Courts.

[smalldog]

OK, this is how it is supposed to work. Let's take tax year 2003/4 as an example.

The SA deadline is 31st Jan 2005. HMRC then have 12 months to open an enquiry under Code of Practice 8 ie. by 31st Jan 2006.

In some cases, they have opened enquiries beyond the 12 month limit under a provision known as "discovery". The argument they gave for doing this was that there was not enough information on the return to allow a full assessment. Montp believe this was complete bollox but I digress.

I know of other people, like yourself, who have received CNs without any prior COP8 enquiry notices whatsoever. It was bad enough HMRC using the ruse of "discovery" to get around the 12 month limit but this is seriously taking the piss.

If we eventually lose the case then all of these breaches of procedure will be open to challenge in the Tax Courts.

I agree, even if the MP route doesnt get us anywhere after the 57 year wait to get to ECHR then we can still appeal to the tax courts on the grounds of not following procedure and protocol. After all if there is a breach there and they havent followed process they may be up the creek without a proverbial in some cases...

[SLB]

I agree, even if the MP route doesnt get us anywhere after the 57 year wait to get to ECHR then we can still appeal to the tax courts on the grounds of not following procedure and protocol. After all if there is a breach there and they havent followed process they may be up the creek without a proverbial in some cases...

If this were the case, does that mean only people who were not subject to the proper procedures would be able to appeal and the rest of us would not be able to appeal?

If not, and if the appealers were successful, would that then mean that we could get our money back (as I'm sure HMRC would enforce payment if we lost in Europe) on the grounds that not all scheme users were treated equally?

[johnnyguitar]

OK, this is how it is supposed to work. Let's take tax year 2003/4 as an example.

The SA deadline is 31st Jan 2005. HMRC then have 12 months to open an enquiry under Code of Practice 8 ie. by 31st Jan 2006.

In some cases, they have opened enquiries beyond the 12 month limit under a provision known as "discovery". The argument they gave for doing this was that there was not enough information on the return to allow a full assessment. Montp believe this was complete bollox but I digress.

I know of other people, like yourself, who have received CNs without any prior COP8 enquiry notices whatsoever. It was bad enough HMRC using the ruse of "discovery" to get around the 12 month limit but this is seriously taking the piss.

If we eventually lose the case then all of these breaches of procedure will be open to challenge in the Tax Courts.

Why can't these people challenge HMRC on this basis straight away ? surely it would be a quicker route to getting the issue resolved for them?
I'm pretty sure that any notice of 'investigation' was after the 12-months period (I'd have to check dates) - so can't I just challenge them individually right now ?

I must admit, getting the feeling that there are many different routes that this can be defended on, I don't understand why we can't launch all missiles at once. Then, this first one to break through wins the war. Some of these approaches may be able to be addressed on an individual basis and wouldn't require a whole load of overhead for MP.

[ASB]

If we eventually lose the case then all of these breaches of procedure will be open to challenge in the Tax Courts.

You might want to check at what point the potential appeal under procedure (or lack of) becomes time expired.