SDLTM82570 - Compliance: Concluding an enquiry
Closure notices: Closure applications by the purchaser: Following delay by the compliance caseworker
If the purchaser has provided the Stamp Office with all the information requested (or required by notice) they will naturally expect to receive a substantive response within a reasonable time scale.
If there is delay on the Stamp Office's part it is likely that the purchaser will seek to force a response by applying for a Tax Tribunal direction.
It is therefore more important than ever that any unreasonable delay in dealing with the information the purchaser has supplied should be avoided, because it is more likely that a Tax tribunal will give a direction in these circumstances.
What constitutes unreasonable delay will depend on the volume and complexity of the information submitted. Some agents may adopt a policy of allowing a fixed period (perhaps one month) to elapse after the submission of records before routinely making a completion application.
If the purchaser applies to a Tax Tribunal for a direction that the enquiry should be completed, and the information submitted has not yet been examined, it should normally be possible to complete the examination before the application is heard by the Tribunal.
In most cases there will be some unavoidable delay before a Tax Tribunal hearing can be arranged. In these circumstances, wherever possible, the information the purchaser has provided should be examined before the date of the hearing.
It is particularly important that this is done because the examination of the papers may enable a compliance caseworker to draw some conclusions on the correct amount of the stamp duty land tax liability. If the Tax Tribunal does direct a compliance caseworker to complete the enquiry immediately this figure can be presented to the purchaser in the closure notice. If the papers have not been examined there may be no option but to allow the land transaction return assessment to stand.
If it is not possible to examine the papers before the Tax Tribunal hearing, the compliance caseworker may still have the opportunity to do so after the hearing and before the date specified by the Tribunal by which the closure notice is to be issued.
Clearly this will depend on the amount of time allowed and the volume and complexity of the papers. If a compliance caseworker has been unable to consider the papers up to this point it is perhaps unlikely that they will be able now to meet what is likely to be a challenging time scale.
But every effort should be made to do so or the opportunity of establishing whether the land transaction return is correct and complete will be wasted. So far as possible in the time allowed a thorough examination of the papers should be carried out before attempting to draw firm conclusions from them.
A partial or skimped examination may lead to an inappropriate conclusion being reached, which could be unfair to the purchaser and which would probably be overturned by a Tax tribunal on appeal.
