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HMRC ‘close’ appeal - what powers have they to do this?
Decision made in 2012.
Client appeals and receives acknowledgement from HMRC Nov 2012, told they will hear again by April 2013.
Nothing. No reply to further letters to HMRC.
August 2014 - receives a letter saying the appeal is ‘closed’, allegedly as they did not send sufficient information. Client never told that what they sent was considered insufficient and never given any chance to remedy any inadequacies.
I’m considering all sorts of complaints. But has anyone seen this ‘closed appeal’ thing before and challenged it successfully?
This isn’t related to the late appeals issue for TC appeals is it Andrew?
I’m presuming that the claimant didn’t state his grounds sufficiently to comply with s39 of the Tax Credits Act.
No, the appeal was definitely in-time and was acknowledged. The correspondence dates from 2012 and then there is a huge lacuna until they advise in 2014 that the appeal was ‘closed’ allegedly on the grounds of lack of information given by the claimant.
Nevip - would the claimant not have been advised of this, rather than left for 2 years?
This looks like HMRC’s standard practice of ‘imposing’ additional requirements once an appeal has been made before they will submit it to HMCTS.
Did you client receive the standard letter which asks them to tick various options inc. withdrawing or setteling the appeal or agreeing to provide additional information? There is usually no option requesting HMRC to simply prepare an appeal submission straight away! The letters sometimes imply the client must provide additional information before HMRC can consider the appeal.
Are HMRC arguing that your client agreed to settled the appeal under TMAs54?
If your client has an acknowledgement of the appeal you could ask them to provide a submission pointing out that there is no power to ‘cancel’ an appeal if further info. is not provided (because they have no power to require additional info. before dealing with an appeal). It is worth asking them to identify the specific power under which they say they can ‘close’ the appeal.
Given the time scale you could apply to HMCTS for a direction that HMRC should provide a submission supplying a copy of the original appeal and acknowledgement (and any subsequent letter that purports to place additional requirments on the claimant before they will consider the appeal)
You could also ask clients MP to raise the issue with HMRC as another example of how they are not complying with the statutory provisions and are introducing extra steps not provided for in those provisions.
This issue must have been discussed here before - I’m sure someone will post the links. See also recent posts in the tax credit threads.
Nevip - would the claimant not have been advised of this, rather than left for 2 years?
You would hope so wouldn’t you but would you bet on it? If the appeal was fully compliant with s38 and s39 then HMRC is acting way beyond it’s powers.