PAYE coding notice relates to current income

The taxpayer argued that because PAYE coding notices for 2019-20 stated she had no tax to pay HMRC could not claim the tax due on disallowed partnership losses from 2001-02. She cited in support the Upper Tribunal’s decision in Bristol & West v CRC [2014] STC 1048 which concerned the validity of a closure notice.

The First-tier Tribunal agreed with HMRC that a taxpayer’s right of appeal against a coding notice was limited. Any such appeal should include the taxpayer’s view of the what the correct code should be and the taxpayer failed to do this.

The purpose of a coding notice was to provide a ‘comprehensive statement of the taxpayer’s position’ but it related only to current income. It was not possible to read across from that notice to self-assessment tax statements from earlier years. In essence the taxpayer was wrong to ‘extrapolate from...