EM1525 | Opening the Enquiry: Statute: Receipt of Notice

If a notice is not delivered it may be some time before you receive evidence of this from the taxpayer. For example this may be some weeks later when they receive your request for documents or information but know nothing about the enquiry. Where you accept the evidence that a notice was not received, you will need to be within the enquiry window to be able to issue another notice.

All notices relating to Income Tax, Capital Gains Tax or Corporation Tax enquiries must be in writing, see EM0067.

You will have evidence of the delivery date if a notice was given by hand or sent, for particular reasons, by recorded delivery. In all other cases you can follow the guidelines for postal delivery times, EM1506 unless the taxpayer gives you evidence of a specific date or claims the notice was never received. Where you do not accept the taxpayer’s evidence you should inform them of your reasons and proceed with your enquiry. The taxpayer may appeal against any subsequent notice under FA08/Sch36/Para1 on the grounds that a valid S9A notice to open an enquiry was not given.