EAIG7100 - Recovering excess repayments made by HMRC: recovery assessments for excess repayments

Recovery assessments are assessments which seek to recover refunds of excise duty which have been wrongly paid or credited to a business.

Where a revenue trader or a person has paid excise duty to HMRC, which was not due to them, then HMRC are liable to repay that amount of duty.

The right to claim excise duty overpaid is provided for by section 137A of the Customs and Excise Management Act 1979.

In addition Schedule 3 of the 2001 Finance Act extends that right to include situations where a person has paid excise duty, as a direct result of “Official error”.

The need to make recovery assessments can arise because a trader has previously made a claim to repayment -under either of the two provisions- which has been accepted and processed by HMRC but which is subsequently found to be an incorrect claim.

Or, recovery assessment action may be required following the release of a binding court judgement in which the interpretation of the law is ultimately decided in our favour. See EAIG8000.