The Court of Appeal has allowed an appeal by five anonymised appellants after finding that a Tax Appeal Commissioner gave no reasons for rejecting their central legal argument about tax appeal conditions.
The judgment, delivered by Ms Justice Power on 13 March 2020, concerns a preliminary hearing on whether the appellants’ tax appeals could be admitted. The Commissioner had ruled in April 2018 that statutory requirements to submit returns and pay tax before appealing applied to them. Appeals for years in which those requirements had not been met were refused admission.
The appellants, a father and his four sons, argued that they were non-resident for tax purposes and were not “chargeable persons” subject to those requirements. They relied on provisions of the Taxes Consolidation Act 1997 and argued that, if they were non-resident, their Irish agent rather than they personally would be assessable and chargeable. They also said the Commissioner should first determine the legal meaning of “chargeable person” before considering evidence about their residence.
The Commissioner did not hear evidence on residence at the preliminary hearing. His later decision said the statutory preconditions applied, but did not explain why he rejected the appellants’ interpretation of the legislation. The High Court refused to quash the decision, finding that the appellants had been given reasonable information about why their appeals were not admitted.
The Court of Appeal disagreed. It said the preliminary hearing first required a legal ruling on whether the appeal preconditions applied to a non-resident under the Act. Only if the appellants succeeded on that point would evidence about their actual residence become necessary. The Commissioner had not addressed the legal submission and appeared to presume the appellants were resident, despite declining to hear evidence on that question.
The court held that the decision did not disclose why the Commissioner considered the appellants chargeable persons or why the statutory conditions applied. It concluded that the lack of reasons breached fair procedure and that the High Court had been wrong to refuse relief.
The judgment allows the appeal against the High Court’s refusal of an order of certiorari. It does not determine whether the appellants were resident in Ireland, whether they were chargeable persons, or whether their tax assessments were correct. The judgment does not state a further order admitting the tax appeals.