In its new report The tax tribunals: the next 10 years, the Institute for Fiscal Studies’ Tax Law Review Committee (TLRC) lists numerous concerns of current tax tribunal users, including over long delays, lack of communication, lack of engagement by some judges, and over the allocation of cases to judges with the appropriate knowledge. It recommends that the FTT:
increases its number of sitting days;
ensures judges have sufficient paid writing and preparation days to ‘realistically discharge’ their duties;
develops a plan to reduce the backlog of unwritten decisions, and considers how to reduce the length of some decisions;
makes its case management more robust;
lists complex cases at an earlier stage;
amends rule 28 of the FTT rules (which allows the transfer of a case from the FTT to the UT) so that the consent of both parties is not required;
improves introductory training on procedural matters and the conduct of hearings;
publishes a policy on when members are assigned to hear cases and on the allocation of judges to cases;
recruits additional members to address the declining number of members in the FTT in recent year, and ensures that the appointment of judges to the FTT (Tax) is a tax-specific appointments exercise (rather than a general exercise), unless the judges are only ticketed to hear routine matters such as penalty appeals;
considers waiving the usual requirement for salaried appointments to have had previous fee-paid service in judicial office;
reviews the terms and conditions of employment of administrative staff to ensure they are competitive with similar positions in the civil service;
implements the Cost Review Group’s recommendations to facilitate access to justice;
considers how to improve the FTT website to assist litigants in person;
explores whether there is professional interest in organising a ‘duty’ scheme to provide advice to litigants in person;
considers giving taxpayers an option of short video hearings instead of paper hearings;
issues guidance to judges on balancing considerations of privacy and open justice, especially in cases that involve factual evidence concerning minors; and
issues a policy on which decisions are published.
Judge Greg Sinfield, president of the FTT’s tax chamber, noted in the senior president’s 2020 annual report that the chamber had to make fundamental changes to procedures ‘and learn new ways of working in a very short time’ as a result of the covid pandemic. The 2021 annual report has not yet been published. The TLRC said Sinfield welcomed its report and ‘commented that, as the report states, the [tax chamber] has already begun to address some of the issues raised’.
In its new report The tax tribunals: the next 10 years, the Institute for Fiscal Studies’ Tax Law Review Committee (TLRC) lists numerous concerns of current tax tribunal users, including over long delays, lack of communication, lack of engagement by some judges, and over the allocation of cases to judges with the appropriate knowledge. It recommends that the FTT:
increases its number of sitting days;
ensures judges have sufficient paid writing and preparation days to ‘realistically discharge’ their duties;
develops a plan to reduce the backlog of unwritten decisions, and considers how to reduce the length of some decisions;
makes its case management more robust;
lists complex cases at an earlier stage;
amends rule 28 of the FTT rules (which allows the transfer of a case from the FTT to the UT) so that the consent of both parties is not required;
improves introductory training on procedural matters and the conduct of hearings;
publishes a policy on when members are assigned to hear cases and on the allocation of judges to cases;
recruits additional members to address the declining number of members in the FTT in recent year, and ensures that the appointment of judges to the FTT (Tax) is a tax-specific appointments exercise (rather than a general exercise), unless the judges are only ticketed to hear routine matters such as penalty appeals;
considers waiving the usual requirement for salaried appointments to have had previous fee-paid service in judicial office;
reviews the terms and conditions of employment of administrative staff to ensure they are competitive with similar positions in the civil service;
implements the Cost Review Group’s recommendations to facilitate access to justice;
considers how to improve the FTT website to assist litigants in person;
explores whether there is professional interest in organising a ‘duty’ scheme to provide advice to litigants in person;
considers giving taxpayers an option of short video hearings instead of paper hearings;
issues guidance to judges on balancing considerations of privacy and open justice, especially in cases that involve factual evidence concerning minors; and
issues a policy on which decisions are published.
Judge Greg Sinfield, president of the FTT’s tax chamber, noted in the senior president’s 2020 annual report that the chamber had to make fundamental changes to procedures ‘and learn new ways of working in a very short time’ as a result of the covid pandemic. The 2021 annual report has not yet been published. The TLRC said Sinfield welcomed its report and ‘commented that, as the report states, the [tax chamber] has already begun to address some of the issues raised’.
