CISR65610 - Late Return Automatic Penalties: Logging an Appeal

| CISR65000 | Information contents | |—————————————————————————————————–|———————-|

Logging an appeal

The appeal should be logged on the day of receipt. This is especially relevant where the appeal cannot be settled immediately as the penalty charge remains collectible until the appeal is logged, when it will then be suspended.

To access this function you will need to hold any of the following roles; CISR Processor, CISR Process Manager or CISR Penalty Administrator.

This Action Guide assumes that whoever logs the appeal will do only that and that the appeal will later be selected through the Work Management system by the CISR WM Penalty Administrator who will then seek to progress and settle the appeal.

If the appeal is submitted by anyone other than the customer, when completing the fields within the ‘Identify Customer’ window;

  • Select ‘Third Party’ (not Agent) from the ‘Contact’ drop down menu before going on to complete the authentication process. This is the case whether the appeal is submitted by the customer level agent or scheme specific agent or by a third party representative.
  • From the CIS Main Menu, select the appropriate contractor scheme reference from the ‘Contractor Scheme’ panel and then ‘Create Penalty Appeal’ from the menu below.

The next window is divided into two panels, the top panel titled ‘Appeal Letter Recipient’ displays the name and AO reference of the contractor scheme. The lower panel titled ‘Select Appellant’ is where the scheme representative or customer who submitted the appeal is shown. The entries you make will decide to which recipient and address the system will issue the appeal acknowledgement. The fields requiring completion in the lower panel are as follows;

  • ‘Represented By’ - The drop down menu will give you the following choices:
  • Customer - This field will initially default to ‘customer’ and will be appropriate if the customer is unrepresented
  • Agent - Will be for when the customer has a scheme specific or customer level agent acting for them
  • Third party - This field is selected if the appeal was submitted by a friend or relative
  • ‘Recipient name’ - This field will be automatically populated as follows when the appropriate drop-down is selected in the ‘represented by’ field:
  • Selecting ‘customer’ will display the customer’s name.
  • Agent - By selecting ‘agent’ you will need to decide which agent the appeal acknowledgement should be issued to. This will be relevant where there is both a scheme specific agent as well as a customer level agent acting. (See CISR19000 for further details relating to these two types of agent). The appeal acknowledgement (CIS320) will be sent to the scheme address as well as the appropriate agent identified.
  • Third party - Selecting ‘third party’ will mean that the appeal acknowledgement (CIS320) will be sent direct to the customer, but it will advise them to pass it to the third party representative.
  • ‘Address for acknowledgement (drop-down menu)’ - this will be automatically populated with the HMRC base address. Where the scheme has a CIS Communication Address set, this option will appear on this drop-down and should be selected if you want the appeal acknowledgement (CIS320) to be sent to the CIS Communication address instead.
  • Customer’s Appeal Reference - This field is intended for use where an agent sends in an appeal on behalf of a contractor.

Having completed the above fields (where appropriate) select ‘Next’.

This takes you to the first of two ‘Create Penalty Appeal’ windows the first of which consists of two panels with the scheme name and AO reference in the top panel. The lower panel titled ‘Penalties provides details of the late return penalties issued during the last six months to that scheme. A maximum of 10 penalties is listed on each page CIS penalties in excess of this will be shown on subsequent pages and can be accessed by selecting the page number or by selecting ‘next’ which will take you to the next page.

If you wish to view all the CIS penalties issued to the scheme (that were issued more than six months ago) you should;

  • select the ‘Show all Penalties’ button.

Having done this, to return to the previous window, you can;

  • select ‘View six months’ at the bottom of the list.

This panel will be populated with the following columns;

  • Reference - this will be the SAFE reference attached to the penalty
  • Type - indicates the type of penalty, entries being;
  • for penalties issued under TMA70/S98A , late filing or final late filing
  • for penalties issued under FA09/SCH55 this will be FP1, FP2, TGP1, or TGP2 (see CISR65050).
  • End Date - this will indicate the month and year of the return the penalty relates to.
  • Instance - the first 2 digits (outside the brackets) relate to the penalty instance for that return. The filing date to which this penalty relates will then follow. For example, 01 (19 08 2008) would be the first penalty instance relating to the monthly return ended 05/08/08 due to be submitted to HMRC by 19/08/08. This will appear for CIS penalties issued under TMA70/S98A but this field will remain empty for all CIS penalties issued under FA09/SCH55.
  • Issue Date - this will be the date of issue or the date of the last amendment of the CIS penalty
  • Amount - is the current amount of the CIS penalty charged
  • Status - this is the current status of the CIS penalty, entries will be issued, re-issued or vacated.
  • Appeal Progress - displays the current state of any appeal made against the CIS penalty.

You should now match the appeal with the appropriate penalty listed and select the box to the left of the CIS penalties being appealed against. It is possible to select more than one penalty at a given time if the appeal clearly relates to more than one penalty.

  • select the [Create Appeal] button which will take you to a further ‘Create Penalty Appeal’ window.

This window will display up to 5 separate penalties against which you wish to log an appeal. If more than 5 penalties are selected the remainder will be listed on subsequent pages.

The top panel contains the scheme name and AO reference. The middle panel lists the penalty (or penalties) you selected from the previous window relating to the appeal submitted. The lower panel needs to be completed as follows;

  • Date received - this will automatically display ‘today’s date’. However if the appeal was received by HMRC before ‘today’s date’ you must over-write the existing entry and enter the date of receipt.

If you are ‘logging’ the appeal only, you may now continue this action guide from ‘Add notes’ below. If you are ‘logging’ the appeal and also considering the grounds of appeal, please continue immediately below.

  • Grounds for Appeal - select the appropriate entry from the drop down menu. The selections are
  • Reasonable Excuse - to be selected where the appellant offers a reasonable excuse as the grounds for their appeal
  • HMRC admin error - this will be appropriate if the appeal suggests the return was issued in error or there was some other HMRC error.
  • Other - this will apply when the grounds for appeal are not fitting to the other options.
  • Location of Appeal Papers - Use this field to record the district record reference of the folder where the appeal papers are filed.
  • Add Notes - You should select this tab to add a note showing the actions taken to progress the appeal.

Each time you add a note to this field you must include your PID at the beginning of the note as the system will only record a date and time automatically to each note. The date and time entries will not be visible until the entries have been saved.

It should be noted that if you add a note when logging multiple appeals the same note made will be added to each of the appeals. See CISR65680 for further information on entering and removing appeal notes, and details of the required method when printing the notes on settlement of the appeal.

  • Select the [Accept] button to log the appeal.

This now takes you to the ‘Create Appeal’ window where you can now see the penalty appeals that you have now ‘logged’ these will now show the amended ‘Appeal Progress’ status of ‘Received’.

  • Select [OK] to return to the CIS Main menu.

An appeal acknowledgement (CIS320) will be issued automatically and the charge will be suspended pending the outcome of the appeal. A penalty work item will also be created once [OK] is selected.