A company may receive a notice of the making of a direction, or of an amendment to a direction. If so, the company can appeal to the Special Commissioners. It does this in writing to the Board. It must do it within sixty days of the date it receives the notice. The company may appeal on one or more of the following grounds:
A notice of appeal against a direction must give the grounds of
the appeal. However, the Special Commissioners can allow the
appellant to introduce any ground of appeal not originally stated.
They can consider this if satisfied that the omission was not
wilful or unreasonable. In practice the Inspector should not
normally object if a ground of appeal not given at first is put
forward later.
In appeal proceedings the Special Commissioners can review
any decision of the Board or Inspector that is relevant to a ground
of the appeal. They have the power to substitute their own
decision. Take the motive test, for example. The Special
Commissioners can do more than just consider whether the Board had
acted reasonably in making a direction. They could replace the
Board's decision with one of their own where they felt that the
controlled foreign company did meet the rules of the motive test in
the particular accounting period.
