TC09600 - [2025] UKFTT 00919 (TC)

Mrs McGuire did not attach to her letter of 9 July 2020 any of the following: the late payment penalty of £1,022 issued in October 2018 for 2014-15; the late filing penalties issued before 3 July 2020 (which totalled £6,500) or the Sch 36 penalties of £2,160. These penalties taken together total £9,682.

Those decisions were addressed to Mr Milhill, and sent to the address he had provided to HMRC as being his address. However, it was in fact that of Ms Griffiths. Mr Milhill did not dispute that the letters had been properly addressed, stamped and posted, and did not put forward any evidence to the effect that Ms Griffiths had never received those decisions. They are thus deemed to have been delivered to her address, in accordance with the Interpretation Act s 7.

HMRC did not know until 3 July 2020 that Mr Milhill did not live at that address. Ms Griffiths was thus acting as an undisclosed agent for Mr Milhill, and there was no dispute that she had actual authority to act in that capacity: Mr Milhill had set up the arrangement so that all HMRC correspondence would go directly to her.

In Bowstead and Reynolds on Agency (23^rd edition) at 8-205 the learned authors state that where a person who has authority to act as an agent receives a notice from a third party (such as, in this case, HMRC), the position is as follows:

“A notification given to an agent is effective as such if the agent receives it within the scope of the agent’s actual or apparent authority, whether or not it is subsequently transmitted to the principal, unless the person seeking to charge the principal with notice knew that the agent intended to conceal the notification from the principal.”

The case law underpinning that passage was discussed in detail by Judge Mosedale in Tinkler v HMRC [2016] UKFTT 170 (TC) at [98]-[103]. We respectfully agree with the analysis there set out and incorporate it by reference. She concluded at [104]:

“It is an absolute rule that service on an agent with actual or apparent authority to receive notices is service on the principal, whether or not the agent informs the principal of the notice.”

Judge Mosedale also considered other relevant authorities, including in particular R (oao Spring Salmon and Seafood) [2004] STC 444 (“Spring Salmon and Seafood”), before saying at [107]:

“Where the TMA required notice to be given to a person, there is no reason at all to suppose Parliament intended to oust the normal rules of agency. So where, for instance, as in Spring Salmon and Seafood the agent was expressly authorised to receive a notice on behalf of the taxpayer, that notice was given to the taxpayer when it was given to the agent.”

For the same reasons as given by Judge Mosedale, we find that the HMRC decisions issued before 3 July 2020 were notified to Mr Milhill.

Judge Mosedale’s decision was also made on the alternative basis that Mr Tinkler was “estopped” (prevented) from arguing that he had not received the HMRC notice in question. Her decision was upheld on that point by the Supreme Court, see Tinkler v HMRC [2021] UKSC 39. The Court found that Mr Tinkler was estopped because the conditions set out below applied:

Those conditions apply to Mr Milhill:

Therefore, even if the law of agency were not to apply, Mr Milhill would be estopped from relying on non-notification of the HMRC decisions which were sent to Ms Griffiths’ address.

For the reasons explained above, we find that Mr Milhill was notified of all the decisions.