When HMRC claims not to have received your Tax Return or other important document and you appeal against HMRC’s penalty notice, you are required to have a ‘reasonable excuse’ which existed for the whole period of the default. There is no definition in law of reasonable excuse, which is a matter to be considered in the light of all the circumstances of the particular case.
Let’s define ‘reasonable excuse’ as an unexpected or unusual event, either unforeseeable or beyond the person’s control, which prevents him or her from complying with an obligation which otherwise would have been complied with? One unexpected, but not all that unusual event, is for your Tax Return not to be received by HMRC. Here are two examples where a ‘receipt’, or lack of one, was central to the outcome of an appeal against an HMRC penalty.
1. One appellant claimed that the HMRC systems must not have been working properly when he tried to upload his tax return online. One reason his appeal against a fine was rejected was that he did not have a receipt from HMRC – they issue an electronic receipt on-screen and by email when a return has been successfully submitted. A receipt is king! It’s absence could defeat your case.
2. In another case, the presence of a receipt did the trick. Not an HMRC receipt but one from the local Post Office. A taxpayer’s accountants posted their client’s Tax Return to HMRC. HMRC claimed never to have received it and issued a penalty notice. But the accountants had had the foresight to obtain a ‘Signed For’ receipt with the correct HMRC address shown, and it was counter-stamped by the Post Office. A receipt is king! It’s presence defeated HMRC’s case and the appeal succeeded.
The moral of this story is that … err … a receipt is king. If you file anything important online, make sure you see the receipt on screen and that you receive confirmation from HMRC in your email. If you post something important to HMRC, perhaps obtaining a ‘Signed For’ receipt from the Post Office would be a prudent thing to do.
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