Taxpayer confidentiality in Tribunal proceedings

Under Article 6 of the ECHR if a taxpayer decides to appeal to the Tribunal, their case will be heard in public and any evidence will enter the public domain. There is a high threshold test under rule 32 of First-tier Tribunal rules (FTR) for any element of the hearing to be held in private or a judgment to be anonymised. However, other options for retaining confidentiality outside of a r 32 application include redacting irrelevant sensitive information from disclosed documents and asking the Tribunal to exclude sensitive details from a judgment where they are not apposite to the central issues of the case. A taxpayer concerned by the need for confidentiality may also wish to consider the various forms of alternative dispute resolution available as an alternative to litigation.