ARTG2440 - Reviews and appeals for direct taxes: Appealing to tribunal: Customer sends appeal to tribunal without appealing to HMRC

Where a customer wants to appeal against HMRC’s decision, they must send an appeal to HMRC within 30 days of the date they receive our formal decision notice, such as the notice of assessment, amendment, closure notice or determination.

If HMRC receive notification from the Tribunals Service that the customer has sent them an appeal form, the assigned litigator in SOLS should first check with the decision maker to see whether the customer has already appealed to HMRC.

If the customer has not appealed to HMRC then the tribunal does not have jurisdiction to consider the matter. The litigator will need to write to the customer to inform them that HMRC will apply for their appeal to be struck out and if they want to continue disputing the decision, they will need to submit an appeal to HMRC by writing to the decision maker. The SOLS litigator should also write to the Tribunals Service to update them about the status of the appeal and make an application to strike it out.

An appeal made to HMRC at this point may be late meaning the customer would need to include a request for HMRC to accept a late appeal and provide an explanation for why the appeal was late.

If a late appeal request is received the decision maker will need to decide whether or not it can be accepted (see ARTG2250).

If the decision maker accepts the late appeal request, then the requirement to give notice of appeal to HMRC will be met, and the decision maker should follow the normal appeals process as though no appeal to the tribunal had yet been made (see ARTG2010).

But if the late appeal request is not accepted by HMRC, the customer would need to make an application to the tribunal for permission to give notice of appeal to HMRC after the relevant time limit (see ARTG8240).

In either case the SOLS litigator should still proceed with the application to strike out the original appeal to the tribunal for lack of jurisdiction.