One year into the new system, there is a need for a comprehensive practical textbook on tax appeals, as distinct from liability to particular taxes or duties. Penny Hamilton and Oliver Connolly have produced just such a guide. The scope of Hamilton on Tax Appeals is wide enough to cover all areas which come within HMRC’s remit (except for tax credits and other ‘paying’functions of the department), and the work’s coverage of indirect taxes and duties appeals is as wide as for direct taxes.

The first things a practitioner might need to know when disputing a decision of HMRC are – does a right of appeal lie against this decision, and what powers does an independent tribunal have? If there is no right of appeal, what other remedies are there?

By way of response to the first question, the authors have provided – in a long chapter for indirect tax and in a series of appendices for direct taxes –detailed checklists covering every situation in which the First-tier or Upper Tribunal has jurisdiction, and what the Tribunal can and cannot do in each case. A similar survey is provided for penalties appeals, under both new and old penalties regimes.

The second question – what remedies are there in the absence of a statutory right of appeal? – is answered in a chapter on alternative remedies, which contains, among other things, an overview of judicial review and more informal avenues such as references to the Adjudicator or the Parliamentary Ombudsman. Particularly interesting is a chapter on the new judicial review jurisdiction of the Upper Tribunal, which explains when the Tribunal has automatic jurisdiction and when it can only exercise it on authorisation by the High Court; how to apply for permission, time limits, and so forth.

Perhaps the main practical value of this work lies in the later chapters, which cover the procedures for appealing in some depth – starting an appeal, how appeals are categorised, making and hearing preliminary applications, preparation for the hearing and putting together bundles, skeleton arguments and witness statements, what happens at the hearing itself. This section of the book provides a useful overview of rules of evidence and procedure which may not be familiar to many tax specialists. It might however benefit from a few simple precedents to assist readers for whom appealing HMRC decisions is relatively uncharted territory.

Other topics covered include the new system of internal review which HMRC offers as an alternative, or preliminary, to an appeal to the Tribunal; references to the European Court of Justice; onward appeals from the First-tier and Upper Tribunals; the complex subject of costs under the new regime; and settling appeals by agreement. The appendices contain the text of rules and practice directions and other source materials.

In short, the process of appealing a tax decision is as technically diverse and difficult as any other tax topic, and a specialism in its own right. This lucid and comprehensive work is an essential purchase for any practitioner whose work involves even the occasional foray into that specialism.

Robin Williamson is Technical Director of the Low Incomes Tax Reform Group, an initiative of the CIOT to give a voice to the unrepresented. He is a member of HMRC’s Tribunals Reform Stakeholder Group.

TAXline, September 2010