19299

Civil Penalty:  Failure to lodge EC Sales Lists; Government Policy change on timeous lodgement; lists submitted late; Appeal refused.

EDINBURGH TRIBUNAL CENTRE

	KARDI CAR & VAN HIRE LTD	Appellants

	- and -

	THE COMMISSIONERS FOR 
	HER MAJESTY’S REVENUE & CUSTOMS	       Respondents

			Tribunal:	 (Chairman):  Mrs G Pritchard, BL., MBA., WS

Sitting in Edinburgh on Tuesday 11 October 2005

for the Appellants		Mr E Petrie

for the Respondents	Mr R Harrison

© CROWN COPYRIGHT 2005.

DECISION

This is an appeal against the imposition of a civil penalty in respect of failure to lodge EC sales lists for the quarter 04/01 and 04/02 having due dates of lodging of 12 May 2004 and 12 August 2004.

Mr Eddie Petrie appeared for the Appellant and Mr Russell Harrison for the Commissioners.

The Chairman asked Mr Harrison to explain the EC sales list regime as it appeared from the file submitted by the Commissioners that many breaches of the requirement had occurred without penalty.  Mr Harrison explained that the Government had not implemented the penalty regime until 01.01.04 when their policy changed.  This is to assist in providing an audit trail of goods through EC Countries, not available if the lists are not sent in.  On 16.01.04 the first penalty liability notice was sent to the Appellant’s Registered office though no actual penalty was applied.  It was intended as a warning to traders to comply with the legislation.  The Chairman accepted the explanation which he offered.

Mr Petrie submitted that he had joined the Appellant Company in July 2004 and found out about the late lodging of sales lists only in March 2005 when 2 penalty notices were issued and penalties claimed for the lack of timeous sales lists for quarters 04/01 and 04/02, the latter having been due after he commenced work with the firm.  He believed there was a reasonable excuse as no one had any sight of the letter of 16.01.04 though he accepted it may have been sent to the Registered office.  Steps had been taken to rectify difficulties with that.  He believed there was reasonable excuse for the second delay as he had been employed because the girl who was responsible for this work left because she could not cope.  She had been asked to do more than she could manage.  He asked for consideration to be given to that circumstance.  Mr Harrison explained that on 23.03.05 the officer dealing with this had turned his attention to the Appellant’s file and saw two quarters returns for EC Sales were late namely 04/01 and 04/02 and issued the appropriate penalties.

Decision
The appeal is refused.

Reasons
It is somewhat unfortunate that these two periods were bundled together as Mr Petrie clearly made every effort to get his company’s EC Sales returns in on time which has been the position since he took over and became aware of the problem.  He was clear the first one in his time was missed only because of the lack of information.  However he alone is not the Appellant.  The Appellant is the Company.  There was a clear history of failure before Mr Petrie’s time for which he is not responsible.  The transfer from the previous company employer to him is never considered a reasonable excuse unless some exceptional circumstances apply.  In the ordinary course of business these forms must be sent timeously.

MRS G PRITCHARD, BL., MBA., WS

CHAIRMAN

RELEASE:  20   OCTOBER 2005

EDN/005/56