Upper tribunal slaps HMRC for overreaching
The UT has ruled the FTT can review whether notices and penalties have been validly issued, but a computer can issue valid documents if it is acting under the instruction of an HMRC officer.
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Long ago, in days of old, there once lived a body of men and women, of real blood and flesh, the Tax Commissioners, whose job was to ensure fair treatment of tax payers by an organisation that had a real face, the face of the real blood and flesh of its District Tax Inspectors of the Inland Revenue. The latter has now been replaced by a computer and the former is law made of nothing but 24 carat pure gold.
And here is what we now have:
https://youtu.be/WOdjCb4LwQY
In many ways a triumph for common sense.
The guidance re future cases is also to be welcomed but I do wonder to what extent bullet 5 will simply be used by some FTT judges as an excuse to conduct their own enquiry into issues not raised by either party (thus continuing uncertainty). Only time will tell.
I recall when corresponding with solicitors - or other legally trained people (including the Law Society itself) - that if a letter did not contain an ORIGINAL signature, that the letter was cursorily dismissed as "not being a legally
admissible document"