Law and tax student researching UK tax tribunal procedures. Imperial College London graduate. Building plain-English resources for self-represented taxpayers.
Issues
HMRC can make you pay your company's unpaid National Insurance, a company penalty or, by a joint and several liability notice, its tax. Each can be challenged, but where your appeal goes, who must prove what and whether you must pay meanwhile depend on the notice you have.
Issues
You can challenge an HMRC underpayment, but the route depends on the letter: ask HMRC to correct a P800, object to a tax code and then appeal it, or query a Simple Assessment within 60 days before appealing. How to check the figures, spread the bill and pay while you dispute it.
Issues
HMRC has refused your DIY housebuilder VAT refund claim (VAT431NB or VAT431C) or rejected it as late. Which refusals the tribunal can overturn (planning conditions, disputed items, completion dates), which it cannot, and how to appeal within 30 days.
Guides
You cannot appeal an HMRC determination, but filing your return replaces it, and you can dispute a return you have already filed by amending it or claiming overpayment relief. The deadlines for each, special relief if you are out of time, and which HMRC letters you can appeal.
Guides
The tax tribunal is not part of HMRC. Who decides your appeal, what the tribunal can and cannot do, what it costs, and how it differs from a court.
Issues
Never told HMRC about income or a gain? Schedule 41 penalties run from 0% to 100% of the tax. How the percentage is set, how to cut it, and how to appeal.
Guides
You do not need a lawyer to appeal to the tax tribunal: the rules let anyone represent you. A guide to going it alone, the free help that exists (and its limits), how to find and vet a paid adviser, and why the tribunal's Birmingham address does not mean a Birmingham adviser.
Guides
A box-by-box walkthrough of Form T240, the First-tier Tribunal (Tax) notice of appeal. What each section wants, which form you actually need, when a T239 is required, and the mistakes that get appeals sent back.
Cases
Kaye Adams beat HMRC over four hearings and nearly a decade. Her case fixed how tribunals run the third stage of the employment status test, the stage where most IR35 appeals are actually decided: what counts, what your engager had to know, and what evidence proves it.
Cases
A newspaper delivery driver wore the company uniform, drove a company-provided vehicle and was taxed as an employee by the Inland Revenue. One clause let him send a substitute, and the Court of Appeal held he was self-employed as a matter of law. What that means for your status appeal.
Cases
HMRC said the work was not an advance and no competent professional was identified. A company in liquidation, argued by its former director with no computer science degree and no barrister, won. What the tribunal accepted as proof, and what sank an almost identical claim two days later.
Cases
HMRC says you're an employee. The 1967 case that still decides the question involved a lorry driver in company colours and uniform, obliged to obey orders—and he was held self-employed. Here are MacKenna J's three conditions, and which one your case turns on.