CH414050 - Charging penalties: appeals: introduction
When you make a penalty assessment, the person has a right of appeal against a number of your decisions.
The person may ask for Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) instead of making an appeal. You can find guidance on ADR here. Note that if the person does not agree with the outcome of ADR, they will still be able to make an appeal.
An appeal against a penalty is treated in the same way as an appeal against an assessment to the tax concerned.
The underlying tax regime dictates the procedure for making appeals. There are different processes for dealing with disputes about direct tax decisions and indirect tax decisions. As a caseworker you are usually the decision maker.
It is good practice to have all the appeals against assessments that you issue during your compliance check considered by the tribunal at the same time.
You will need to inhibit debt management action for penalties following an appeal until the appeal has been resolved and you may need to amend or cancel a penalty assessment as a result of discussions following an appeal, or review, or the decision of a tribunal.
If you work in Local Compliance you will find further guidance by selecting the Appeals and Reviews page that can be found as a quick link in the Local Compliance Homepage.
Large Business Service has its own processes. See the LBS site and select A from the A-Z index, then select Appeals.
Technical guidance on the legislation on appeals against penalties for
- inaccuracies and under-assessments is at CH84000
- failure to notify is at CH74500
- VAT and excise wrongdoing is at CH97000
- failure to file on time is at CH64500.
Guidance about amending penalties using NPPS starts at CH407800.
Guidance on appeals and reviews is in the Appeals Reviews and Tribunals Guidance (ARTG).