Tax decisions made on your tax bill and a claim for tax relief by the HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) may not always be satisfying for you. In such instance, you have the right to appeal against such decision.

For appealing against tax decisions, you need to an appeal form which should include your name, business name, tax reference number, what you disagree with and why, what are the correct figures according to you and how have you calculated them.

If you do not agree with the HMRC’s response, you can request them to review their decision The review is generally carried out by an officer not involved in the previous decision. It will usually take up to 45 days and you will get the result then after. Even if it takes a longer time, HMRC will inform you to arrange an extension.

In case if you disagree with the outcome of the review, you can ask the tax tribunal to hear your appeal and do so within 30 days of the review decision.

On the other hand, if you feel penalties imposed by the HMRC is not right, you can also appeal against a penalty. Normally, you can appeal against a penalty for sending in your tax return late, paying your taxes late, not keeping adequate records, and filing an incorrect return.

If you have a reasonable excuse of filing your tax return or paying your taxes late, you can appeal against some penalties. Some examples of reasonable excuses are if your partner died shortly before the tax return or payment deadline or if you had an unexpected stay in hospital that prevented you from handling your tax affairs.

When it comes to dealing with tax decision, you can get assistance from specialist tax advisers. Because they are aware about all the aspects of tax decisions, you will be able to tackle them very carefully.