A Reasonable Excuse: How to Appeal an HMRC Self Assessment Penalty: The Thirty Days, the Test HMRC Keeps Getting Wrong, and Why You Do Not Pay Until It Is Decided - Couverture souple

Prior, Alex

Couverture souple

ISBN 13 : 9798172815454

Editeur : Independently published, 2026

Synopsis

A hundred pounds for filing late. Then ten pounds a day. Then three hundred more, and three hundred more. On a year in which you owed no tax at all.

Most people pay, because they assume the penalty is automatic and that only a hospital admission counts as an excuse. Three things are wrong with that, and all three are written down.

HMRC has to prove the penalty before your excuse matters at all. The Upper Tribunal put it in terms: the initial burden lies on HMRC, "a mere assertion of the occurrence of the relevant events in a statement of case is not sufficient", and without evidence the penalty must be cancelled before reasonable excuse is ever reached.

The daily penalties are not automatic. Paragraph 4 of Schedule 55 says you are liable "if (and only if)" HMRC decided a daily penalty should be payable and gave you a notice specifying the date it runs from. That is £900 that has two conditions attached to it.

And you do not have to pay while the appeal runs. Paragraph 21(2)(a), in terms.

Then there is the test itself. HMRC keeps asking for an "unexpected or unusual event", or something "unforeseeable". In 2018 the Upper Tribunal called that an unsustainable position and said the tribunal may award costs against HMRC for arguing it. The statutory phrase is reasonable excuse, and it is judged by reference to your experience, your knowledge and the situation you were actually in.

This book is the whole process, in plain English.

Which penalty you have and how each one is calculated.
Whether it is properly due: was a notice to file ever given, was it served, was the daily penalty decision made.
The four questions the tribunal asks, quoted from the judgment, and how to structure an appeal around them.
Ignorance of the requirement, illness, bereavement, mental health, relying on an accountant, not having the money, and the online receipt that is not a receipt.
The separate power almost nobody asks for, and why the way you word it decides what a tribunal can do about it later.
The section under which HMRC can simply withdraw the notice to file, so that no return was ever required and the whole stack of penalties falls away.
And the appeal itself: thirty days, the late appeal route that says HMRC shall agree, the review, and a tribunal that charges no fee and cannot order you to pay HMRC's costs.

It is honest. Mrs Perrin lost her own appeal. The case is authority for the law, not a promise about your facts, and the book says which grounds tend to work and which do not.

Nothing to buy. No firm to hire. Free tax charities named.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Independently published
• Date d'édition: 2026
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 13: 9798172815454
• Reliure: Paperback
• Nombre de pages: 144
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: non disponible