SACM10035 - Unsuccessful Attempts to Make a Claim or Election: Late Claims - Can Claim be Accepted?

See SACM10030 for what is a late claim.

Unless the legislation allows the time limit to be extended at the discretion of the Board of HMRC, as is the case at section 35(6) TCGA 1992, claims made outside of the relevant time limit are invalid.

Where late claims are made the Board may extend the time limit by exercising its responsibility of collection and management (see section 5(1) CRCA 2005). The circumstances in which the Board may allow some extension to the statutory time limit was set out in a Parliamentary written answer on 10 December 1985. That answer is set out below.

In cases where no statutory discretion is given to the Board of Inland Revenue to extend a time limit for a claim or election, it must be assumed that

• Parliament's intention is that the limit should be applied strictly, and
• the number of cases in which it would be appropriate to exercise discretion under the Board's powers of care and management (provided in the Taxes Management Act 1970) is correspondingly limited.

Every such case has to be considered individually on its own merits and in the light of all the factors relevant to the circumstances in which the claim was made late.

However, there would be a presumption in favour of admitting a late claim where

• there has been a relevant error on the part of the Inland Revenue, and
• the claim is made shortly after the error has been drawn to the taxpayer's attention;

where

a taxpayer has given clear notice of his intention to claim, but before the time limit expires he has not

• completed any statutory requirement or
• specified the claim in sufficient detail

or where

the reason for the delay in making the claim was clearly beyond the taxpayer's control, for example because

• he (or in the case of a company the only individual who had the relevant information and experience) was seriously ill and
• there was no-one else who could reasonably be expected to stand in his shoes.

See SACM10040 for who makes the decision whether or not to accept a late claim?