CH22240 - Information & Inspection Powers: Conditions and safeguards: Restrictions: Legal professional privilege
You cannot require a person
- to provide privileged information, or
- to produce the privileged part of a document.
Information is privileged if a claim to legal professional privilege or, in Scotland confidentiality of communications, could be maintained in legal proceedings.
This is a complex area of the law but, broadly speaking, privilege attaches to
- documents containing confidential communications between lawyer and client for the purpose of obtaining or giving legal advice, and
- documents produced for the purpose of contemplated or actual litigation.
Where you are seeking documents or information that could include privileged material (for example, if you are asking for all documents relating to transaction X they could include privileged material if the person consulted a lawyer about the transaction) the notice or any informal request should contain a paragraph along the lines of that in CH22250 for requests and that in CH22260 for notices.
A lawyer is a member of the legal profession. Where you are seeking documents or information that could include tax advice given by someone who is not legally qualified, see CH22300,
Documents may contain some information that is privileged and some that is not. Where a person does not wish to produce that part of a document that is privileged, they can produce a copy of the part which is not protected. The original document must be made available for you to inspect if you need to, see CH23480. The protected parts may be kept covered up at this inspection.
Where any claim for legal professional privilege is made (or any other matter relating to legal professional privilege arises) a report should be made to Central Policy, Tax Administration Advice, before any further action is taken, see CH22260.
There is a formal process for deciding whether information falls within the meaning of privileged, see CH22260.
