Third-party information notice

The taxpayers applied to the First-tier Tribunal to have the right to attend the hearing of HMRC’s application for a third-party information notice under FA 2008 Sch 36 in relation to an investigation into Mr E and the three corporate applicants and to make representations. In any event they wished to be told when the hearing took place and for it to be held in private because they did not wish their tax affairs to be made public. HMRC also applied for the hearing to be private so as not to jeopardise its investigation.

The tribunal said it had no power to allow an adversarial process in a hearing for an application for a Sch 36 notice. Nor did it have the jurisdiction to tell the taxpayer when such a hearing would take place. The taxpayers could challenge the notice by judicial review. Further when HMRC finished...