UT (Tax & Chancery) UT/2022/000155 - [2025] UKUT 00003 (TCC)

We have found that there was no error of law in the FTT deciding that notice had been validly given as of 11 March 2016 that the Appellant’s representative had been appointed and authorised such that it was on the record on 21 July 2016 and 26 July 2016 at the time the Tribunal made the complex case allocation and gave notice of this to the representative. There is no challenge to the Tribunal’s findings that the effect of Rule 13(5) is that the representative continued to act on behalf of the Appellant at the time that notice was given and only ceased on 11 August 2016 when notice was given of the new representative acting. Therefore, the representative was the proper person to receive notice of the allocation decision at the time the Tribunal gave notice of it by virtue of Rule 11(4)(b).

Although the Appellant had no permission to argue this as a ground of appeal, during oral submissions Professor Zarkov raised a further argument to the effect that notice of the allocation decision can only be given to the taxpayer by virtue of Rule 10(1)(c) and not to its representative, even if validly appointed and notified to the Tribunal. Therefore, he submitted that no effective notice was or has been given to the Appellant of the allocation decision, the time for the Appellant to opt out of the costs shifting regime has not yet started running and therefore the Tribunal erred in law when ordering costs when it had no power to do so.

We agree with the decision at [24] in Aquarius that when Rule 11(4) states that it applies to ‘a person’, that person includes and applies to the Tribunal. Therefore, the Tribunal on receiving due notice of the appointment of the representative—

must provide to the representative any document which is required to be provided to the represented party, and need not provide that document to the represented party; and

may assume that the representative is and remains authorised as such until they receive written notification that this is not so from the representative or the represented party.

We have rejected the grounds of appeal pursued by the Appellant and found there to be no material error of law in the FTT’s Decision. The appeal must be dismissed and the FTT’s costs order is confirmed.

We hope that this decision emphasises the need for a realistic and pragmatic approach to the FTT’s procedural Rules. The approach to interpretation and application of the Rules should accord with the overriding objective by virtue of Rule 2(3). This includes avoiding unnecessary formality, seeking flexibility and dealing with the case in a proportionate way. While all cases are important to the parties, the FTT (Tax Chamber) hears a huge variety of appeals ranging from simple cases with low sums at stake and unrepresented parties to the most complex litigation where billions of pounds of revenue may be in issue. We adopt all that is said in binding authorities about the parties’ approach to compliance with the Rules and the requirements of procedural fairness, but emphasise that this should not give rise to opportunistic or technical arguments being raised which bear no relationship to the merits or justice of a case.