Tag Archives: APN

Does an APN mean than LTAG is not an applicable solution?

The most important thing to note  about Advanced Payment Notices (APN’s) is that they are issued as a mechanism for HMRC to not have to wait for taxpayers to pay while an appeal is underway.  In the event that an appeal succeeds then payments made under an APN are refunded with statutory interest.

By this it should be clear that an APN does not invalidate an appeal it simply means that potential liabilities have to be paid up-front.

LTAG is claiming that for certain repayments made to taxpayers HMRC are out of time to recoup those repayments.  If a taxpayer needed to pay an APN the LTAG claim would still be valid.

For those clients that can afford to do so LTAG advises the purchase of Certificates of Deposit so as to mitigate any further interest charges HMRC may choose to make.  In effect paying for these CD’s or for an APN  has the same immediate cash effect. The only difference being that one, CD’s, is voluntary and the other not.

HMRC wins Advance Payment Notice (APN) High Court case

A few weeks back HMRC won a High Court case where over 150 Ingenious partners had claimed that APN’s should not be served due to a number of legal grounds.

The case is available on legal web sites but in summary HMRC won the right to disallow tax-payers the cash benefit of not not paying HMRC when cases are still under enquiry.  HMRC persuaded the judge that tax-payers went into Ingenious, or should have, with their eyes open and therefore should not delay paying HMRC on the back of very long running court hearings and appeals.  In effect, once a closure notice has been issued HMRC wants to be paid.

The case transcript stresses that HMRC acknowledges that Ingenious may in due course win it’s appeals and if so HMRC will repay to tax-payers their APN’s with interest.

At LTAG we believe that in certain circumstances tax-payers who are served APN’s should first determine if HMRC is in time to serve them at all.