Mrs V A Todd v HMRC, FTT TC04700 – 09 December 2015 

Facts of the case:

The appellant, upon receiving a notice from HMRC to file her tax return for the year 2013-14, appointed an accountant to file her tax return. The deadline for filing the paper return was 31 October 2014, and for electric filing it was 31 January 2015. The accountants posted the form 64-8, which would have authorised them to represent the client, to HMRC as they couldn’t request the authorisation online due to a system malfunction on the HMRC website. On 2 January 2015, the accountants queried the lack of response from HMRC who advised that the form 64-8 had not been received. The accountants then sent the tax return by post together with the relevant 64-8 with a covering letter advising that they had no access to the website to submit the return electronically. HMRC received the completed 2013-14 and on 6 January 2015 sent out a penalty notice to the Appellant for £100.00 for her failure to submit a return to HMRC by the filing date which was 31 October 2014. On appeal by the taxpayer, HMRC wrote back refusing the appeal on the basis that there was no reasonable excuse for the late filing. In their cover letter HMRC stated that the tax payer was required to buy commercial software to complete an online return. 

The accountants argued that that they didn’t have access to commercial software to be able to file online, and therefore had no option but to submit a paper return. 

The FTT allowed the appeal on the basis that the taxpayer had engaged a professional firm to file their returns who acted reasonably in the circumstances. They were seeking to be compliant with their obligations to file returns but felt unable to do so due to a malfunction of HMRC’s website. 

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