AH2140 - Appeals Handbook - ITSA Appeals: Assessments, Amendments and Enquiries: Application for a closure notice: following Commissioners’ hearing

If the Commissioners direct you to complete your enquiry, you must

• notify the taxpayer in writing by issuing a closure notice within the time specified that the enquiry is now formally completed
• at the same time state your conclusions and make any amendments to the return
• base your conclusions and figures on whatever evidence you have found to support or challenge the accuracy of the return (including any third party information). You do not have the right to require the taxpayer to produce any further information before stating your conclusions.

You may subsequently have further contact with the taxpayer or agent (for example, if your conclusion is that the tax charged in the self assessment is insufficient and the taxpayer wants to enter into a negotiated settlement or if the taxpayer appeals against the closure notice) but you are not entitled to make any further enquiries into the return.

The Commissioners' direction is limited to a specific year (or specific years). It does not extend to other years and if you have already extended your enquiries into earlier years' returns you can continue to pursue those enquiries.

If however you have not yet discussed earlier years' liabilities with the taxpayer or agent, you should only do so following a Commissioners' direction if the conclusions you have already been able to draw about the return under enquiry cast doubts on the accuracy of earlier years' returns, or if you could make a discovery assessment on the basis of other information relating to those years which is in your possession.

There is no restriction on the number of closure applications made during the course of an enquiry. The legislation says at any time.

If a further application is made immediately after the Commissioners have rejected an earlier one (in effect, a protest against the direction) grounds for making the application, leave it to the Commissioners to decide whether they wish to hear the application again.

If the rejection of a closure application is followed by delay on HMRC's part, then any subsequent application should be processed normally, even if the circumstances have not altered since the earlier application was rejected.