CH23060 - Information & Inspection Powers: Information Notices: five types of information notice

There are five types of information notice.

Collectively, these notices are called “information notices”.

There are different rules for each type of notice but there are some rules which apply generally to all information notices, see CH23200.

Taxpayer notice

Any officer of HMRC can give written notice to a person requiring them to provide information or produce documents reasonably required for the purpose of checking their tax position. Further guidance is at CH23500.

Third party notice

Any officer of HMRC can give written notice to a third party requiring them to provide information or produce documents reasonably required for the purpose of checking another person’s tax position.

You must know the identity of the person whose tax position is being checked.

Further guidance is at CH23600.

Financial Institution Notice (FIN)

Any officer can give written notice to a Financial Institution (FI), see CH23110, requiring them to provide information or produce documents reasonably required for the purpose of checking another person’s tax position, see CH21720. Unlike a third-party notice, the FIN will not require prior agreement from the taxpayer or tribunal approval before it can be issued, see CH23140.

Further guidance starts at CH23105.

Identity unknown notice

Only an authorised officer can give written notice to a third party requiring them to provide information or produce documents reasonably required for the purpose of checking the tax position of

  • a person whose identity the officer does not know, or
  • a class of persons whose individual identities are not known.

Further guidance is at CH23900.

The increased daily penalty, see CH26705, is only applicable to a failure to comply with an identity unknown notice.

Identification notice

Only an authorised officer can give written notice to a third party requiring them to provide ‘relevant information’ about a person or class of persons whose identity is not known by HMRC but where HMRC has information from which their identity can be ascertained. This means that we hold some information from which somebody else can tell us the identity of the person.

‘Relevant information’ is the name, address and date of birth (if known) of the person whose identity is being sought.

Further guidance is at CH23991.

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