Claire Blenkin v The Commissioners for his Majesty’s Revenue and Customs

In her Notice of Appeal dated 6 September 2022 the appellant appealed the High Income Child Benefit Charges (“HICBC) “in its entirety”. She also sought to appeal the interest charges.

There is no right of appeal in relation to her own self-assessment tax return for 2020/21 or the interest charges.

The Review Conclusion letter dated 26 August 2022, annexed to the Notice of Appeal, related to the discovery assessments for the tax years 2018/19 and 2019/20 in the sums of £667 and £1,076 respectively, being a total to £1,743.

There was an oral hearing of this appeal on 13 September 2023 via the Tribunal video platform and, of consent, a short decision without findings of fact and reasons was issued on 28 September 2023.

The appeal was dismissed.

On 10 June 2024, the appellant emailed the Tribunal (but not HMRC) stating:

“Good afternoon,

Several of my family and friends have had their pending tribunal appeals dropped recently (with exactly the same circumstances as me) and will no longer have to ‘pay back’ the charges like I (sic) am currently doing.

Please can you explain to me what has happened since my appeal below and when someone will be in contact to confirm the same? I am currently in the process of a payment plan to HMRC and obviously keen to get confirmation that this can be stopped”

She sent a reminder on 8 July 2024 but in Judge Scott’s long-term absence on sick leave following an accident the Tribunal administration did not respond to the appellant.

On 28 August 2024 enclosing her correspondence with the Tribunal, she emailed Ms Aziz who responded on 6 September 2024 stating that:

“We work on a case by case basis, therefore the reasons why we defended your appeal are based on the circumstances of your case alone. HMRC do not discuss other taxpayers (sic) cases due to GDPR.

At the hearing the tribunal agreed with HMRC’s submissions and dismissed your appeal therefore it concludes matters.”

On 18 September 2024, the appellant again emailed the Tribunal stating that she had spoken with Ms Aziz who had told her to revert to the Tribunal.

On 18 October 2024 a duty Judge asked that the correspondence be referred to Judge Scott as it should be treated as an application for permission to appeal.

Judge Scott asked that the following email be sent to the appellant that day and it was issued. It read:

“Judge Scott has asked me to reply to your correspondence with the Tribunal as follows:

‘Your correspondence with HMRC and the Tribunal administration has been forwarded to me today, 18 October 2024. I am afraid that I do not know why the administration has not responded to your emails and I can only apologise for that omission. Following an accident more than six months ago, I have been on long-term sick leave and have only just returned to work on a phased basis, although I am not yet hearing any cases. I have a substantial backlog of decisions which require to be drafted by me.

Once a hearing in an appeal has taken place and a decision issued, the only other method of dealing with a case is for an appellant to appeal the decision to the Upper Tribunal on the basis that there was an error in law. Two issues arise in that regard. Firstly, no appeal can be considered unless a decision including full facts and reasons is issued by the Tribunal. In this case the only decision was a short decision so a full decision would have to be written by me. The second issue is that the Tribunal has no jurisdiction in relation to how HMRC deals with other taxpayers and that is a factor that could not have been taken into account in the original hearing. It can form no part of the reasoning in a full decision. Further, anything that happened after your appeal also cannot be taken into account. I realise that this is not the answer that you were looking for but the simple fact is that neither I nor any other Judge can look at HMRC’s dealings with other taxpayers. We can only apply the law to the facts relating to the individual taxpayer who has appealed to the Tribunal.

If you wish to appeal the decision in your case, then I will write a full decision, but I am afraid that I will be unable to even look at it before Christmas because of my limited working hours and the other outstanding decisions.

In order to make sure that there is no delay in my knowing whether or not you need a full decision, could you please reply to the administration in the usual way but copy your reply to my Clerk, Angela Shaw at [email details]. “

On 17 November 2025, more than a year later, the appellant emailed the Tribunal administration and Judge Scott’s clerk stating that “I confirm that I wish to proceed and request a full decision in relation to my appeal…”.

As can be seen, because of the exceptional delays on the part of the Tribunal administration, Judge Scott had extended the usual 28 day time limit for requesting full reasons. She undertook to write a full decision, if that was required, for the purposes of an appeal and that decision would have been issued approximately 11 months ago. She then assumed that, as there had been no response from the appellant, no such decision was required. She cannot now trace all of her papers.

Unsurprisingly, after such an elapse of time, neither Judge Scott nor Ms Gordon can recollect detail of the evidence heard in September 2023.

It is not therefore possible to write a full decision in the usual way and with full details. Rather than refuse to write any decision we annex hereto HMRC’s Statement of Reasons (“the Statement”) which narrates the facts, HMRC’s written submissions and a summary of the appellant’s arguments in relation to the appeal.

As far as the facts are concerned, we note that paragraph 18 of the Statement states that on 22 June 2021, the appellant appealed the assessments to HMRC. In fact, she sent an appeal dated 16 June 2021 to HMRC by Recorded Delivery; perhaps it was received on 22 June 2021. The Notice of Appeal is an identical copy of that letter.

In the narrative of the facts in the Statement it does not record the fact that HMRC wrote to the appellant on 17 September 2021, referencing her letter of 16 June 2021 and said that they had “paused” the penalty and were working on the implications of the decision in HMRC v Jason Wilkes [2021]UKUT 150 (TCC); they apologised for the inevitable delay.

HMRC have waived the penalties.

It can be seen from paragraphs 14 and 15 of the Statement that HMRC had been sending correspondence about HICBC to the wrong address. In her Notice of Appeal the appellant stated that that data breach had continued from 29 January 2018 until May 2021. She asked that that data breach be taken into account in the appeal.

The Tribunal is a creature of statute and has only the powers given to it by statute. The data breach is a matter for HMRC’s complaints processes and the Tribunal has no jurisdiction in that regard. The Tribunal can only find the facts and then apply the relevant law. Therefore the Tribunal cannot take the data breach into account when deciding whether or not to allow the appeal.

The appellant’s other primary complaint was that the imposition of the HICBC assessments was unfair. As the Upper Tribunal made clear in Hok v HMRC [2012] UKUT 363 (TCC) the Tribunal has no jurisdiction to consider whether or not the legislation is fair.

The letter of 17 September 2021 (see paragraph 17 above) is referred to in the Statement at paragraph 51 in the context of an analysis of section 97 Finance Act 2022. We agree with that analysis and find that the two discovery assessments are “protected assessments” within the meaning of that section.

The quantification of the HICBC is accurate and the assessments were issued timeously.

As we have indicated, neither the interest charges nor the self-assessment tax return for 2020/21 are appealable to this Tribunal.

For all these reasons the appeal is dismissed and the discovery assessments are upheld.

For the reasons given, insofar as possible, this document contains full findings of fact and reasons for the decision. Any party dissatisfied with this decision has a right to apply for permission to appeal against it pursuant to Rule 39 of the Tribunal Procedure (First-tier Tribunal) (Tax Chamber) Rules 2009. The application must be received by this Tribunal not later than 56 days after this decision is sent to that party. The parties are referred to “Guidance to accompany a Decision from the First-tier Tribunal (Tax Chamber)” which accompanies and forms part of this decision notice.