“I have been requesting further information and documentation from your client for some considerable time and given that no further information or documentation has been provided to date I would advise that my decision has not changed and the assessments I have issued will remain in place.”
“if you want to appeal to the tribunal, you must notify your appeal to the tribunal, enclosing a copy of this letter, within 30 days of the date of this letter.”
“as you are aware, Mr Harvey does not agree with the estimated assessments made by Mr Davidson and is insistent that the amounts that have been assessed are far too high. He is also not admitting any liability to the amounts assessed.”
“49G Notifying appeal to tribunal after review concluded (1) This section applies if– (a) HMRC have given notice of the conclusions of a review in accordance with section 49E, or (b) the period specified in section 49E(6) has ended and HMRC have not given notice of the conclusions of the review. (2) The appellant may notify the appeal to the tribunal within the post-review period. (3) If the post-review period has ended, the appellant may notify the appeal to the tribunal only if the tribunal gives permission. (4) If the appellant notifies the appeal to the tribunal, the tribunal is to determine the matter in question. (5) In this section "post-review period" means– (a) in a case falling within subsection (1)(a), the period of 30 days beginning with the date of the document in which HMRC give notice of the conclusions of the review in accordance with section 49E(6), or– (b) in a case falling within subsection (1)(b), the period that– (i) begins with the day following the last day of the period specified in section 49E(6), and (ii) ends 30 days after the date of the document in which HMRC give notice of the conclusions of the review in accordance with section 49E(9)”
“If the notice of appeal is provided after the end of any period specified in an enactment referred to in paragraph (1) but the enactment provides that an appeal may be made or notified after that period with the permission of the Tribunal– (a) the notice of appeal must include a request for such permission and the reason why the notice of appeal was not provided in time; and (b) unless the Tribunal gives such permission, the Tribunal must not admit the appeal.”
“34. Applications for extensions of time limits of various kinds are commonplace and the approach to be adopted is well established. As a general rule, when a court or tribunal is asked to extend a relevant time limit, the court or tribunal asks itself the following questions: (1) what is the purpose of the time limit? (2) how long was the delay? (3) is there a good explanation for the delay? (4) what will be the consequences for the parties of an extension of time? and (5) what will be the consequences for the parties of a refusal to extend time? The court or tribunal then makes its decision in the light of the answers to those questions. 35. The Court of Appeal has held that, when considering an application for an extension of time for an appeal to the Court of Appeal, it will usually be helpful to consider the overriding objective inCPR r 1.1 and the checklist of matters set out inCPR r 3.9 : see Sayers v Clarke Walker[2002] 1 WLR 3095 ; Smith v Brough[2005] EWCA Civ 261 . That approach has been adopted in relation to an application for an extension of the time to appeal from the VAT & Duties Tribunal to the High Court: see Revenue and Customs Commissioners v Church of Scientology Religious Education College Inc[2007] STC 1196 36. I was also shown a number of decisions of the FTT which have adopted the same approach of considering the overriding objective and the matters listed inCPR r 3.9 . Some tribunals have also applied the helpful general guidance given by Lord Drummond Young in Advocate General for Scotland v General Commissioners for Aberdeen City[2006] STC 1218 at [23]-[24] which is in line with what I have said above. 37. In my judgment, the approach of considering the overriding objective and all the circumstances of the case, including the matters listed inCPR r 3.9 , is the correct approach to adopt in relation to an application to extend time pursuant to section 83G(6) of VATA. The general comments in the above cases will also be found helpful in many other cases. Some of the above cases stress the importance of finality in litigation. Those remarks are of particular relevance where the application concerns an intended appeal against a judicial decision. The particular comments about finality in litigation are not directly applicable where the application concerns an intended appeal against a determination by HMRC, where there has been no judicial decision as to the position. Nonetheless, those comments stress the desirability of not re-opening matters after a lengthy interval where one or both parties were entitled to assume that matters had been finally fixed and settled and that point applies to an appeal against a determination by HMRC as it does to appeals against a judicial decision.”
“(1) On an application for relief from any sanction imposed for a failure to comply with any rule, practice direction or court order, the court will consider all the circumstances of the case, so as to enable it to deal justly with the application, including the need– (a) for litigation to be conducted efficiently and at proportionate cost; and (b) to enforce compliance with rules, practice directions and orders.”
“37. There is nothing in the wording of the relevant rules that justifies either a different or particular approach in the tax tribunals of FtT and the UT to compliance or the efficient conduct of litigation at a proportionate cost. To put it plainly, there is nothing in the wording of the overriding objective of the tax tribunal rules that is inconsistent with the general legal policy described in Mitchell and Denton . As to that policy, I can detect no justification for a more relaxed approach to compliance with rules and directions in the tribunals and while I might commend the Civil Procedure Rules Committee for setting out the policy in such clear terms, it need hardly be said that the terms of the overriding objective in the tribunal rules likewise incorporate proportionality, cost and timeliness. It should not need to be said that a tribunal's orders, rules and practice directions are to be complied with in like manner to a court's. If it needs to be said, I have now said it. 38. A more relaxed approach to compliance in tribunals would run the risk that non-compliance with all orders including final orders would have to be tolerated on some rational basis. That is the wrong starting point. The correct starting point is compliance unless there is good reason to the contrary which should, where possible, be put in advance to the tribunal. The interests of justice are not just in terms of the effect on the parties in a particular case but also the impact of the non- compliance on the wider system including the time expended by the tribunal in getting HMRC to comply with a procedural obligation. Flexibility of process does not mean a shoddy attitude to delay or compliance by any party.”
“If applications for extensions of time are allowed to develop into disputes about the merits of the substantive appeal, they will occupy a great deal of time and lead to the parties' incurring substantial costs. In most cases the merits of the appeal will have little to do with whether it is appropriate to grant an extension of time. Only in those cases where the court can see without much investigation that the grounds of appeal are either very strong or very weak will the merits have a significant part to play when it comes to balancing the various factors that have to be considered at stage three of the process. In most cases the court should decline to embark on an investigation of the merits and firmly discourage argument directed to them. Here too a robust exercise of the jurisdiction in relation to costs is appropriate in order to discourage those who would otherwise seek to impress the court with the strength of their cases.”
“…take into account, in the context of the overriding objective of dealing with cases fairly and justly, all relevant circumstances, and…disregard factors that are irrelevant.”
“Time limits imposed by law should generally be respected. In the context of an appeal right which must be exercised within 30 days from the date of the document notifying the decision, a delay of more than three months cannot be described as anything but serious and significant.”
“is to require a party asserting a right to do so promptly, and to afford to his opponent the assurance that, after the limit has expired, no claim will be made.”
“to provide certainty to all parties and in particular to allow HMRC to bring cases to a swift conclusion in cases where the taxpayer does not contest the figures put forward by HMRC. However, in this case the figures have been contested by the taxpayer throughout.”
“HMRC will have to re-open many years’ assessments which were previously thought to have been closed. HMRC will have to allocate staff to working the case with substantial consequential costs.”
“The change to r 3.9, as Jackson LJ put it [in Denton vTH White[2014] EWCA Civ 906 ] at [96], was ‘not intended to introduce a harsh regime of almost zero tolerance, as some commentators have suggested’.”