02 April 2020
The administration of the First-tier Tribunal (Tax Chamber)
Announcement of Reduction in Service in the First-tier Tribunal Tax Chamber Administrative centre
The administration of the First-tier
Tribunal (Tax Chamber) is based in Birmingham.
In response to the impact of COVID-19 (Coronavirus) and to protect the
health and wellbeing of our staff and the wider community, we have made some temporary
changes to the working arrangements at the Birmingham office. The office is currently open but is only staffed
by a core team working split shifts to manage current workload as far as
possible and within social distancing guidelines. All other staff who are able to do so are
working remotely. Inevitably, these
arrangements will have an impact on the ability of the office to deal with correspondence
and proceedings.
Appellants should, where possible,
submit notices of appeal online at https://www.gov.uk/tax-tribunal/appeal-to-tribunal
or by email. Except where the online
appeal service is used, the parties should expect delays in receiving any
acknowledgement of receipt of an appeal from the Tribunal. Appellants should continue to comply with the
relevant time limits for lodging an appeal.
Where they are unable to submit their notice of appeal within the prescribed
time limit, they should submit it as soon as possible with an application for permission
to appeal late explaining why the notice of appeal was not provided in time.
All parties must continue to comply
with directions issued by the Tribunal.
Following the general stay issued on 24 March 2020, all current proceedings
in the Tax Chamber are stayed for 28 days until 21 April 2020 and any time
limits in those proceedings are extended by 28 days. The stay and extension of time do not affect
any directions issued by the Tribunal after 24 March 2020.
All emails and communications will
be acknowledged and replied to in due course.
Please be patient, as it may take time to deal
with any backlog.
Judge Greg Sinfield
Chamber President
3 April 2020