Clause 34 - Time limit and right to further review
Finance Bill
2:30 pm
Mr John Healey (Economic Secretary, HM Treasury; Wentworth, Labour)
Clause 33 provides the taxpayer with the right to require Customs to review its decision that a taxpayer is liable for a civil penalty, whether or not a penalty has actually been imposed. Clause 34 sets time limits in which a person requiring a review under clause 33 must notify Customs. It also provides the right to require a decision to be reviewed a second or subsequent time, but only when new facts or matters are presented.
Amendments Nos. 123 and 124, which the hon. Member for Eddisbury (Mr. O'Brien) has tabled, are clearly aimed at clarification, as he said. I contend that they are unnecessary and in some ways unhelpful. If accepted, they would provide the opportunity for potential abuse of the time limits by the taxpayer and Customs. The amendments rightly identify ''given'' as a key word in clause 34(1) and (2). In both subsections, that can rightly be interpreted as meaning that the notice referred to must be both issued and received. However, the amendments provide only for the issue of a notice, in one case by the taxpayer and in the other by Customs.
The hon. Gentleman is seeking clarity, so I shall try to be clear for the record. We shall resist amendment No. 123 because it would give unscrupulous taxpayers the opportunity to claim that they had missed deadlines about which they knew nothing. Amendment No. 124 would give Customs the opportunity to put the taxpayer in the same, unfair position. The use of the word ''given'', with its meaning of the notice being both issued and received, offers the necessary protection to both parties: the taxpayer in clause 34(2) and Customs in 34(1).