NRCGT return

[etf]

Does anyone disagree that HMRC's publicity campaign (or lack of) regarding the NRCGT filing requirement was infinitely worse than their efforts on the HICBC? Treat taxpayers even-handedly please Mr Harra (and a further prod for my PB)....I think this request for a review of NRCGT late filing penalties is 'objectively reasonable' given that HICBC taxpayers have already had their review.

Some supporting analysis below from Lee's article which supports this viewpoint:

As HMRC have not provided any details of this publicity and guidance material… I have had to research the position myself.” I think this is the point at which the case goes downhill for HMRC.

The tribunal judge’s investigations took him to ETF’s assiduously curated forum postings: NRCGT Return, many of which have been duplicated on the ICAEW’s tax forum. The judge noted that HMRC had to “give notice” – i.e., that a taxpayer must be forewarned that penalties would be imposed. This clearly did not happen here, or with other NRCGT penalties, which are largely delivered as a fait accompli.

The judge also noted that HMRC’s “ample publicity” amounted to

· The Budget Announcement itself
· Three mentions in Agent Updates
· Four “tweets”
…which elicited:

“I am sure that every December in the past few years the appellant, like many other inhabitants of Rozelle, NSW, Australia, has been agog with excitement waiting for the British Chancellor of the Exchequer’s Autumn Statement. How much more relevant must it be to their tax affairs than anything the Australian Treasurer has to announce.”

And

“I cannot say what these [tweets] said or whether the appellant was using Twitter, and if she was whether she was following HMRC at the time. I suspect not.”

I am disappointed that the judge did not give any public consideration as to how likely it was that the taxpayer subscribed to Agent Updates. I also deduce that he also does not follow HMRC on Twitter (or at least, not in 2016). However, he redeems himself by incorporating Perrin v HMRC [2014] UKFTT 488 (TC) - a case which also methodically demolished HMRC’s approach to the taxpayer defence of reasonable excuse (see HMRC: Unreasonable Interpretation of “Reasonable Excuse”)

But worse for HMRC was to come:

“The arguments advanced by HMRC about knowledge of the law are little short of preposterous. To say that information about NRCGT returns is “well within the public domain”, as if the public domain had boundaries where one could tell whether something was just in it or well within it or completely within it, is also claptrap.

Even assuming that the appellant started to market her property or exchanged contracts after 5 April 2015, it is also preposterous to expect that a document on HMRC’s website which is not easy to find for a tax judge makes invalid all possible excuses about not knowing of the NRCGT return deadlines.

There is a serious deficiency exhibited here in common sense, proportion and an ability to consider the position of what HMRC calls its customers.

I do not think that it is unreasonable for a person who knows that they have been making annual SA returns, that those returns require a return of CGT liability, (even if they do not know that the return does not even require a gain exempt because of private residence relief to be returned) and whose own gain is exempt (but is one that they obviously tried to report in their on-time return for 2015-16) not to realise that they must file a NRCGT return showing no tax to pay within 30 days of completion, or otherwise to face penalties of £1,600. Why would they?

[etf]

Not sure why HMRC interpreted my request as only initial late filing penalties.....surely their accounting system would provide an annual total of these penalties and so I'm just asking them to sum 8 figures?

Again not a good idea for HMRC to be in charge of requests like this as they are effectively marking/hiding their own work.

Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA)
Thank you for your request, which was received on 3 November, for the following
information:
“30 day/60 day CGT property return late filing penalties
I should be grateful if you would confirm the total amount of late filing penalties levied since
these returns were introduced in April 2015 to 5 April 2023 (or 31 March 2023 if easier)”
Our response
We have interpreted your request as the number of initial late filing penalties issued for the
Capital Gains Tax (CGT) on UK property return between 6 April 2015 and 5 April 2023.
We can confirm we hold the information you seek. However, providing the number of initial
late filing penalties issued to the CGT on UK Property Return would exceed the FOIA cost
limit. We have therefore refused your request under section 12(1) of the FOIA.
Section 12(1) FOIA allows a public authority to refuse to comply with a request for
information if the authority estimates that the cost of compliance would exceed the
‘appropriate limit’, as defined by the Freedom of Information and Data Protection
(Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004 (the Regulations). In the case of HMRC this
is £600, or 24 hours charged at £25 per hour.
Regulation 4(3) of the Fees Regulations allows the following activities to be taken into
account when calculating the cost of compliance:
• determining whether the information is held;
• locating the information, or a document which may contain the information;
• retrieving the information, or a document containing it; and
• extracting the information from the document containing it.
2
OFFICIAL
While we hold individual-level information on the timing of tax return submissions and any
late returns penalties levied, aggregate level information on all penalties relating to returns
submitted via the system for reporting CGT liable residential property is not readily available.
We have established that providing this information would exceed the FOIA cost limit due to
the time involved in extracting it from different data sources, linking this information together
and analysing and summarising to answer the request. Normally we would explore how you
might be able to refine your request so that it did not exceed the FOIA cost limit. However, in
this case, we cannot see any scope for doing so.

[etf]

Seems luck of the draw with these appeals....very similar result to Goochie near the start of this thread, but lots of intervening contra results.

NEW
avatar
By AdShawBPR
06th Dec 2023 09:40
I recently took on a client who didn't realise a CGT was due on the sale of a property. Solicitors never told her and when pressed they referred to their terms and conditions saying they don't give tax advice! She did receive a £100 penalty for a late CGT return but this was waived on appeal. From others I have seen, solicitors are not telling their clients about this.


NEW
Replying to AdShawBPR:
avatar
By Software Seeker
06th Dec 2023 12:34
What was the basis of the appeal, out of interest?


NEW
Replying to Software Seeker:
avatar
By AdShawBPR
06th Dec 2023 13:56
I just told HMRC how it all happened which is: The taxpayer (not a wealthy individual at all) has been filing her own straight forward tax returns without fail and on time for many years and she knew she would have to report a gain on the return. She wasn't a client of mine but I know her and she asked me about the CGT entries on her return. I pointed out that she should have completed a CGT Return which came as a complete surprise to her. We did that together very quickly after I pointed out the error. I relayed all that to HMRC and the fact that the solicitor had said absolutely nothing about this. I also told them it was a daft system!

[etf]

Unbelievable response from HMRC below...see red text below. Like a taxpayer stating they can't quantify their self-employment income for their tax return because it would take too long. How would HMRC respond to that?


Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA)
Thank you for your request, which was received on 1 December, for the following
information:
“My request was for the total amount of CGT late filing penalties in the specified period and
I'm not sure why you interpreted it as initial penalties only. One would have thought your
accounting system would have an aggregate of these penalties for each tax year and so you
just need to sum 8 figures.”
Our response
We can confirm we hold the total number of late filing penalties issued for the Capital Gains
Tax (CGT) on UK property return between 6 April 2015 and 5 April 2023. However, providing
this information would exceed the FOIA cost limit. We have therefore refused your request
under section 12(1) of the FOIA.
Section 12(1) FOIA allows a public authority to refuse to comply with a request for
information if the authority estimates that the cost of compliance would exceed the
‘appropriate limit’, as defined by the Freedom of Information and Data Protection
(Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004 (the Regulations). In the case of HMRC this
is £600, or 24 hours charged at £25 per hour.
Regulation 4(3) of the Fees Regulations allows the following activities to be taken into
account when calculating the cost of compliance:
• determining whether the information is held;
• locating the information, or a document which may contain the information;
• retrieving the information, or a document containing it; and
• extracting the information from the document containing it.
While we hold individual-level information on the timing of tax return submissions and any
late returns penalties levied, aggregate level information on all penalties relating to returns
submitted via the system for reporting CGT liable residential property is not readily available.
This is because we hold the information on the timing of returns and any late returns
penalties separately for individual customers. We do not have an existing process for adding
together information on all penalties relating to returns submitted via the system for reporting
CGT liable residential property. The information is not held within a system that would make
adding penalties together quick or straightforward.
We have established that providing this information would exceed the FOIA cost limit due to
the time involved in extracting it from the different data sources, linking this information
together and analysing and summarising to answer your request.
Normally we would explore how you might be able to refine your request so that it did not
exceed the FOIA cost limit. However, in this case, we cannot see any scope for doing so.
If you are not satisfied with our reply, you may request a review within 40 working days of
receiving this letter by emailing informationrightsunit@hmrc.gov.uk or by writing to our
address at the top of this letter.
If you are not content with the outcome of an internal review you can complain to the
Information Commissioner’s Office.
Yours sincerely,

HM Revenue and Customs

[etf]

Mr Bates v The Post Office must be very uncomfortable viewing for leaders who know things aren't right, but take no action.

[etf]

Just watching episode 3 on catch-up...Toby Jones complaining about the FOI can't help letter I copied to this thread on 28 Dec.

[etf]

The Post Office scandal has re-kindled interest in this thread and in my opinion there are similarities :

-A Government Department breaking the rules-they didn't treat taxpayers fairly in accordance with HMRC's Charter-from memory initially only 3% of appeals against late filing penalties were successful which changed to (mind the gap) 99% later on.

-HMRC's leadership are aware of the above (I wrote to the leadership to tell them) but nothing has been done to remedy the situation (a review was undertaken for the HIBC and bd6759 commented at the time that this review would come back to bite HMRC...perhaps now?).

-A key NRCGT tribunal appeal case that was won by the taxpayer was not published for a pro-longed period (so the public could not see it) despite numerous requests for this to be remedied.

-HMRC's FOI office denied a request for quarterly appeal information that had previously been provided-the statistics were too embarrassing.An attempt to cover up?

-HMRC's FOI office denied requests for information on the total late filing penalties charged-again a request earlier on was answered.

-A general lack of empathy for the situation taxpayers found themselves in....Judge Thomas .....“The arguments advanced by HMRC about knowledge of the law are little short of preposterous. To say that information about NRCGT returns is “well within the public domain”, as if the public domain had boundaries where one could tell whether something was just in it or well within it or completely within it, is also claptrap.

[etf]

Great train robbery proceeds: £2.6 million.

HMRC NRCGT late filing penalties charged £4.633 million (to 30 June 2019).

re FOI office denials....HMRC were originally able to quantify and provide the total of late filing penalties levied (see above). So they are either being dishonest in stating they can no longer access this information, or alternatively, have installed a shiny new reporting system that is not as good as the old one....mmmmmmmh!

[etf]

If the view count figure is to be believed there were over 100,000 hits on this thread yesterday. Can that be correct?

In case they are regular readers I have copied below my earlier post which I believe proves the FOI team are dodgy dealers (Toby Jones aka Mr Bates agrees). They denied my request because the quarterly issue of these figures was embarrassing but then released the figures before their own deadline to someone else.

Postby etf » Thu Jun 17, 2021 8:33 am

As part of my FOI request I asked HMRC to provide the number of 30 day CGT returns that had been filed in each quarter. This was their response to my request:

Section 22(1) applies if three conditions are met:
a) there was an intention to publish at the time the request was received; and
a) it is reasonable to withhold the information until the planned publication date and
b) it is not in the public interest to disclose the information earlier.
In considering (b) and (c) above we have taken account of the following factors.
We accept it is reasonable and in the public interest that information regarding disposals of

CGT liable residential property under the new rules effective from 6 April 2020 is made pub-
licly available. But the public interest will be met by our planned national statistics release.

Taking these factors in to account, we consider that, on balance, the public interest in with-
holding the information within scope of your request until after the national statistic are pub-
lished in August 2021, outweighs the public interest in disclosure at this time

The above is absolute balderdash because if that "secret squirrel" mentality was observed consistently, how was I able to publish the following a week or two ago?

These two issues were considered by the Office of Tax Simplification (OTS) in its latest report on capital gains tax. The report notes that between 6 April 2020 (when the reporting requirement commenced) and 6 January 2021, more than 50,000 UK property tax returns were filed, one third of them outside the 30-day time limit.

Does this not prove the only reason HMRC denied my last and earlier FOI requests is because this thread and the highlighting of HMRC's unfair treatment of taxpayers is an embarrassment for the department. It reminds me of the "Don't tell them Pike" scene in Dad's Army.

616229

[etf]

HMRC bashing the little guy/treating people fairly!!!!!!!!!!!!!???????????

etf...can I have the CGT property return filing stats?

HMRC FOI Office bog off

Office for Tax Simplification ..can we have the CGT property return filing stats?

HMRC FOI Office certainly and would you like tea or coffee with that and would you be interested in attending our internal trust seminar?