In William Tinkler v HMRC [2019] EWCA 1392 the Court of Appeal ruled that a notice of an enquiry sent to a tax agent was not validly served on a taxpayer; the subsequent closure notice was also invalid.

A Closure Notice for a tax enquiry will only be valid if the underlying enquiry has been validly opened. For an enquiry to be validly opened a notice of enquiry must be served on the taxpayer.

The First Tier tribunal (FTT) held the notice was not validly served on a taxpayer, invalidating the closure notice.

HMRC appealed and the Upper tribunal (UT)  disagreed, deciding that a notice could be validly served on a taxpayer via his agent:

The Court of appeal, in reversing the UT decision, agreed with the FTT:

On the point of estoppel, where HMRC claimed that Mr Tinkler was estopped from denying that the enquiry had been validly opened by the conduct of his agent, the Court of Appeal agreed with the UT:

The judge said that HMRC had only themselves to blame for what occurred. They were at fault in sending the notice of enquiry to the wrong address, (the relevant officer had deliberately decided to send the notice to an address at which Mr Tinkler no longer resided rather than where HMRC had been asked to send correspondence), and they misled the agent into assuming that an enquiry had been validly opened.

Comment

By coincidence, the High Court has also considered some of these points in the judicial review  case of JJ Management LLP & Ors, R (On the Application Of) v HMRC & Anor [2019] EWHC 2006 (Admin) 

Links to our guides:

Closure Notices
When does HMRC issue a closure notice? Can a taxpayer demand one? Are there appeal rights?

How to appeal an HMRC decision

External links:

William Tinkler v HMRC [2019] EWCA 1392

UT decision: William Tinkler v HMRC [2018] UKUT 0073 (TCC) 

FTT decision: William Henry Tinker [2016] FTT TC4960