CH177080 | Sanctionable conduct by tax advisers: file access notice: power to access tax adviser's files from third parties

We may issue a file access notice to a person who is not the tax adviser. This is where we believe that person may hold relevant documents (a third-party ‘document-holder’). We might decide to issue a file access notice to a third-party document-holder because, for example:

• The tax adviser hasn’t provided the information required, or

• We need to independently check information that the tax adviser has provided to us

Before we request documents from a third party document-holder, we must first obtain approval from the Tribunal. The third party can appeal (to the Tribunal) against the file access notice on the grounds that it would be unduly onerous to comply with it.

As with file access notices issued to tax advisers, we can only issue a file access notice to a third-party document-holder where Case A or Case B circumstances apply – see CH177020.

Before we ask the Tribunal to approve the issue of a file access notice to a third party, we’ll normally give both the first party and the third party opportunity to tell us about any problem the third party may have in giving us the information we intend to request.

The third-party document-holder may be an individual or an organisation who possesses records relating to a taxpayer’s tax affairs.

Third-party document holders may include, for example, financial institutions such as banks, building societies and investment managers, holding records or account details.

FA12/SCH38/PARA7 as amended

FA12/SCH38/PARA8 as amended