ARTG2215 | Reviews and appeals for direct taxes: Appealing against a decision: Customer appeals against certain penalties or surcharges

Where a customer appeals against certain penalties or a surcharge, the appeal will be passed to the appropriate office dealing with the penalty or surcharge.

It will be passed to a member of the team dealing with penalty and surcharge appeals, and the person dealing with the appeal will be treated as the decision maker for the purposes of this guidance.

For guidance on Default Paper cases, see ARTG8370.

The decision maker will acknowledge the appeal and action any postponement application, see ARTG2510.

They will then consider the appeal and decide whether or not it should be accepted. If they accept the customer’s appeal then they should follow normal procedures and close the case.

If they do not, they should write to the customer setting out their current view of the matter and explain to the customer what they should do if they do not agree with HMRC’s view. In this letter the decision maker should offer a review of HMRC’s decision, see ARTG4220.

The customer may either accept the offer of a review or notify the appeal to the tribunal within 30 days. If the customer does neither, HMRC’s decision will be treated as upheld and the appeal settled, see ARTG2730.