TC09669 - [2025] UKFTT 01256 (TC)

The appellant, Mr Marshall, did not attend the hearing.

In the days prior to the hearing, HMRC contacted Mr Marshall, copying in the Tribunal, noting that Mr Marshall had paid the penalty under appeal and querying whether he intended to proceed with the hearing.

The Tribunal emailed Mr Marshall (to the email address included with the Notice of Appeal) directing him to confirm whether he intended to proceed with the appeal. The email received an automatic reply from Mr Marshall which simply stated “We are currently away with no access to email”. There was no other means of contact provided in the automatic reply.

The Tribunal had had the same response to an email sent a month earlier (9 June), but not to the email sending the notice of the hearing or joining details for the online hearing (sent on 24 and 27 June). The Tribunal noted that the Appellant had not engaged with any communications sent from the Tribunal since the Notice of Appeal was submitted.

HMRC confirmed at the hearing that they had not had any further communication from Mr Marshall.

Our first question therefore was to consider whether we should proceed with the hearing in his absence under Rule 33 of the Tribunal Procedure Rules (the Rules).

The considerations we took into account were:

We considered that it was in the interests of justice and in accordance with the overriding objective to proceed with the hearing as this approach was proportionate to the importance of the case and the complexity of the issues, allotted an appropriate share of the Tribunal’s resources to this appeal and avoided delay, in accordance with Rules 2 and 33 (b) of the Rules. Accordingly, we decided to proceed in the Appellant’s absence.