The Court of Appeal dismissed James Doyle’s appeal against the refusal of judicial review of a Circuit Court decision concerning tax assessments. It held that the Circuit Court was right to reject Doyle’s preliminary application, although its reasoning may have been flawed.
The dispute concerned amended income tax assessments for the years ending 5 April 1992 and 5 April 1994. Revenue said Doyle had not fully disclosed the source of about IR£100,000 invested in insurance products. Doyle’s accountants said the money came from farming income earned before 1980, when, they said, he was not liable for income tax on that income.
Doyle had made a tax amnesty disclosure in 2001 and said he had produced a waiver certificate to Revenue that year. When his Circuit Court appeal against the assessments came before Judge Barry Hickson in April 2014, his counsel argued that the certificate prevented further Revenue enquiries unless Revenue first obtained the Appeal Commissioners’ approval. The Circuit Court judge rejected a preliminary application to dismiss the assessments, relying on section 955 of the Taxes Consolidation Act 1997 and also ruling against the amnesty point.
The High Court refused judicial review in 2016. It interpreted section 5 of the Waiver of Certain Tax, Interest and Penalties Act 1993 as applying to the particular enquiry that prompted production of a certificate. On that interpretation, a taxpayer must produce the certificate within 30 days of each new enquiry to invoke its protection. The High Court said Doyle had not produced it in response to the 2006 enquiry and had delayed until 2013.
On appeal, the Court of Appeal agreed with the High Court’s interpretation. It said the Circuit Court judge would have been better addressed on section 5, rather than only on section 955. But the appeal court found that rejecting Doyle’s preliminary application was the correct result: the certificate did not bar separate enquiries that might be opened by another inspector, at another time, or on different information.
The Court of Appeal said that even if Doyle obtained the relief he sought, the issue would return to the Circuit Court, where the preliminary application would have to be rejected. It dismissed the appeal and declined to quash the Circuit Court decision. The judgment addressed the preliminary application and judicial review; it does not state the outcome of the underlying substantive tax appeal.