How To Submit a Tax Appeal By Email

In this blog, I offer some practical tips for notifying your tax appeal to the First-tier Tax Tribunal using email to give you confidence that your communication has reached them, and also avoid the cost and hassle of sending bulky documents to the tribunal by post or courier.

The email address of the tax tribunal is [email protected].

It is sensible to avoid sending too many attachments in a single email, and I avoid sending more than 10 megabytes in any one email to avoid size restrictions on the tribunal’s servers. The same is also true when sending copies by email to HMRC. As a guide, the completed Notice of Appeal (Form T240) plus a scan of the original closure notice or review conclusion letter is about 600 kilobytes, ie 60% of a megabyte. You can also lodge your appeal online here.

The tax tribunal does accept service of notices of appeal and accompanying documents by email and you should not need to send confirmatory printed copies by post or courier unless specifically directed to do so. HMRC will also, in my experience, accept emailed documents, but once again, you need to be careful when sending bulky documents such as a hearing bundle, and for safety, break the bundle down into server friendly amounts, typically by sending each indexed section of the bundle clearly marked as such by separate emails.

If you do use email, the tribunal specifically requests that you do not also send printed copies as this is apt to confuse the tribunal staff who may not appreciate that the two sets of documents relate to the same matter.

When you email the tax tribunal, you should receive an immediate automatic acknowledgement. You will also get a reference number and the tribunal will also inform HMRC of the receipt of the appeal, although it is good practice to send a copy to your HMRC contact if you have one. You can also telephone the tax tribunal on 0300 123 1024 if you wish to follow-up an email or chase progress on a matter.

The other benefit in communicating with the tax tribunal by email is that the tribunal staff will also use email to contact you and to send you letters and directions, thereby eliminating the risks of using the postal service.

If you wish to discuss making an appeal to the tax tribunal in a tax dispute with HMRC, please contact Patrick Cannon for an initial discussion.