BN66 - Court of Appeal and beyond

[prozak]

It's also a great idea if all 3000 (or so) impacted players could request copies in the weeks leading up to Christmas. It will give Hector something to do during the quiet time.

haha.

good idea.

and then ask every 3 months.

and then get all 3,000 to put in some FOI requests.

[kiwinlondon]

Have you received a Closure Notice where there was no prior enquiry opened in to that particular tax year?

One person who this happened to has challenged HMRC and they conceded that they should not have done this and have cancelled the sums owing from their account.

If this happened to you then write to whoever issued the CN and ask that they do the same.

What about receiving a statement with the tax due for a particular year and then receiving the enquiry notice 9mths after the statement was received....??? Oh and then they sent the closure notice a couple months after that....

[DonkeyRhubarb]

What about receiving a statement with the tax due for a particular year and then receiving the enquiry notice 9mths after the statement was received....??? Oh and then they sent the closure notice a couple months after that....

I suspect they can get away with it as long as:

a) the Section 9a enquiry notice was issued within the 12-month window (eg. for tax year 04/05 this would be 31 Jan 07)
AND
b) the Section 9a preceeded the Closure Notice

[elpinar]

so what do we call and ask for a copy of - all enquiry launch letters issued against us ? and all closure notices

or just the former?

[ASB]

so what do we call and ask for a copy of - all enquiry launch letters issued against us ? and all closure notices

or just the former?

If I were a cynical chap having done that and got the response from them I might then choose to do a subject access request and see if the information returned was different.

[DonkeyRhubarb]

so what do we call and ask for a copy of - all enquiry launch letters issued against us ? and all closure notices

or just the former?

You could send this letter:
http://forums.contractoruk.com/accou...ml#post1439979

Or if you call them ask for copies of all Section 9A TMA 1970 notices sent to you.

There are 3 possible scenarios:

1) They never issued a Section 9A enquiry notice. In this case the corresponding Closure Notice is invalid and should be withdrawn, and any adjustments to your return removed.

2) The enquiry was issued after the CN. Ditto the CN is invalid.

3) The enquiry was issued after the 12-month window. This may or may not cite "discovery" as a justification. In either case this is up for challenge in the tax courts at the end of the legal process.

If you think either 1, 2 or 3 might apply to you, then it's definitely worth contacting HMRC to confirm this.

[elpinar]

You could send this letter:
http://forums.contractoruk.com/accou...ml#post1439979

Or if you call them ask for copies of all Section 9A TMA 1970 notices sent to you.

There are 3 possible scenarios:

1) They never issued a Section 9A enquiry notice. In this case the corresponding Closure Notice is invalid and should be withdrawn, and any adjustments to your return removed.

2) The enquiry was issued after the CN. Ditto the CN is invalid.

3) The enquiry was issued after the 12-month window. This may or may not cite "discovery" as a justification. In either case this is up for challenge in the tax courts at the end of the legal process.

If you think either 1, 2 or 3 might apply to you, then it's definitely worth contacting HMRC to confirm this.

sorry - being really dim here.
In that eg you have the 3 early tax years - is that because they are just examples or because those are the only years that are so old they now fall out of the timeframe in which they can retropsecitvely issue lettters etc?
ie - if our first year was 04/05 does this whokle possibility not apply ?

[DonkeyRhubarb]

If I were a cynical chap having done that and got the response from them I might then choose to do a subject access request and see if the information returned was different.

Quite a few people have contacted me saying they can't see the point in asking HMRC when enquiry notices were sent because they would probably just lie. One person even suspected they would forge copies of letters.

It is really shocking isn't it that people expect a government department to be so dishonest.

[DonkeyRhubarb]

sorry - being really dim here.
In that eg you have the 3 early tax years - is that because they are just examples or because those are the only years that are so old they now fall out of the timeframe in which they can retropsecitvely issue lettters etc?
ie - if our first year was 04/05 does this whokle possibility not apply ?

They were just examples. The same rules on enquiries and closure notices apply to all tax years.

[ASB]

Quite a few people have contacted me saying they can't see the point in asking HMRC when enquiry notices were sent because they would probably just lie. One person even suspected they would forge copies of letters.

It is really shocking isn't it that people expect a government department to be so dishonest.

Yes, it is. However there is a certain amount of precedent. I wasn't really alluding to that though.

I believe there are circumstances - and I am not saying this is one of them - where it may be legitimate to withhold certain information in order to protect their position. However it can be that the DPA offers no such protection. There is a mish mash of legislation, some of which does not sit well with each other.

An example is recently I contacted a government department requesting certain information. I received what they were "allowed" to release. I do not doubt that everything they cited was indeed correct and the disclosure was complete under the process I had used to request it. A chap I know then made essentially the same request under, in this case, the FOI. As a result of this he received an additional document. [This document was highly sensitive commercially; in my view it should not have been released but as far as I can tell the department had no choice but to release it. Of course it could just have been a cockup rather than anything else].

My thought therefore is that a DPA request might actually cause a more complete disclosure rather than a simple request for information.