The revenue wrote to the claimant seeking information as to his self-employed work, and requesting completion of an enclosed form, for the purposes of determining his entitlement to working tax credit. Following a delay of several months, and repeated requests for the information, the claimant eventually returned the completed form but enclosed no supporting documentary evidence. The revenue concluded that the self-employment test for a claim to working tax credit was not met but, rather than refusing it, instead granted working tax credit for a single day of the relevant tax year. It none the less regarded that decision as an initial “in-year” decision under section 14(1) not to award working tax credit. The revenue subsequently purported to issue a notice under section 17 as to the claimant’s tax credit award for the tax year and to make a final entitlement decision for that tax year pursuant to section 18 that the claimant was entitled to working tax credit for a single day. The claimant’s appeal against the section 14 decision was dismissed by the First-tier Tribunal on the ground of an absence of qualifying self-employment. In response to the claimant’s further appeal to the Upper Tribunal, the revenue at first contended that once there had been a final section 18 determination, the earlier section 14 decision had ceased to have effect, with the result that the claimant’s appeal against it had lapsed or become academic, the proper route of challenge instead being to seek a mandatory reconsideration of the section 18 decision and, if still dissatisfied, to appeal against that decision. It subsequently conceded that, where the section 14 decision had been a decision not to award tax credit, no section 17 notice should have been issued and there had been no power to make a section 18 entitlement decision in the claimant’s case. However, it continued to oppose the appeal on its merits.
On the claimant’s appeal—
Held, appeal dismissed. Section 17 of the Tax Credits Act 2002 conferred no power on the revenue to give a notice where a tax credit had not been awarded, and, without a section 17 notice, there could be no section 18 decision. Accordingly, in the absence of an award of working tax credit, the section 17 notice given by the revenue in the claimant’s case had been of no effect and, in turn, there could be no valid section 18 decision causing the claimant’s appeal to the First-tier Tribunal to lapse. The payment of a single day’s working tax credit to the claimant, in so far as it did not reflect a positive decision that he satisfied the entitlement conditions on that day, had presumably been made on some extra-statutory basis. The claimant’s appeal was therefore valid but the First-tier Tribunal had had no alternative but to dismiss it in the absence of information, which only the claimant could provide, necessary to support a finding that he was self-employed for the purpose of working tax credit entitlement (paras 2, 3–4, 23, 26, 37, 38, 42).
The appeal was determined on written submissions.