F Haque

Administration and appeals: Penalties for late return

In F Haque (TC00394 – 15 March) a woman (H) failed to submit her 2007/08 tax return by the due date and HMRC imposed a penalty of £100.

H appealed contending that she had a reasonable excuse because this was the first occasion on which she had attempted to file her return online and her activation PIN had not worked.

The First-Tier Tribunal dismissed her appeal finding that the reason the PIN had not worked was that H 'had not used the PIN within 28 days of it being issued so it had expired'.

Judge Gandhi observed that 'this is clearly written on the letter sent to her with her PIN both in the text of the letter and in bold and capitals at the very top of the letter as well as this information being available on...