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What’s your excuse?

Reasoning that works before tax tribunals

KEY POINTS

  • Lack of a statutory definition of reasonable excuse.
  • Underlying cause of lack of funds.
  • Nature of reliance on an accountant.
  • Online filing and test submissions.

My dog ate my tax return/tax demand doesn’t really wash when it comes to reasonable excuse. But that does not mean that no other excuse will work.

Taxation reports many cases that come before the First-tier Tribunal where the taxpayer has missed a deadline pleads reasonable excuse and has his appeal accepted. 

There is no statutory definition of what constitutes a reasonable excuse. SA reasonable excuse below shows extracts from HMRC’s website of what they consider to be reasonable excuse for self-assessment purposes.

SA REASONABLE EXCUSE

According to HMRC’s...

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