CH230100 - How to do a compliance check: information powers: rules that apply to all notices: resolving disputes about legal professional privilege: introduction

You cannot require a person to provide or produce information or documents which are covered by legal professional privilege. Technical guidance about legal professional privilege is at CH22240.

A person may claim that information or documents required by an information notice are protected by legal professional privilege. You may have reason to dispute the person’s claim. This guidance is about the processes put in place to resolve such disputes. The technical guidance on resolving disputes about legal professional privilege is at CH22260.

The processes in place to resolve these disputes are different depending on whether you give a notice

• in correspondence, see CH230200 or
• during an inspection, see CH230300.

Select flowchart of the process (Word 39KB) to see when an information notice is given in correspondence.

These processes for resolving disputes about documents claimed to be privileged do not apply to those documents included in your notice that are not in dispute; they must be provided to you within the time allowed by the notice.

You may receive a claim from the taxpayer, third party or person acting on their behalf. In the context of this guidance, ‘person’ refers to all of these parties to a dispute.

There are important deadlines that neither you nor the person should miss.