Mr. Brian Keegan:

One of the recurring difficulties with the Appeal Commissioners’ process is that we do not know what is going on. We had difficulties identifying how many cases were going through the process. We have to try to reconcile the very legitimate concerns about taxpayer privacy and confidentiality with the concern to ensure that adjudication is seen to be open, transparent and fair.

Another problem with the Appeal Commissioners' process that can be overlooked is where the rubber hits the road. One of the great values of the process is that it tells us, for example, that if one hires somebody on these terms will Revenue treat them as an employee or does a certain kind of research qualify for research and development exemptions? There is great precedential value out of the Appeal Commissioners’ hearings. If we lose that, we will lose an intrinsic part of the appeals process.

Perhaps we need to have a little more regard for what happens internationally. For example, in the UK it is an open court. I am not in a position to say if that type of process has damaged businesses there but I believe we could benefit from studying that much more. The trick will be to ensure that we know, to a reasonable extent, what is going on with the appeals process and the precedential value of those kind of decisions while, at the same time, ensuring no taxpayer is put at a commercial or personal disadvantage by how the hearings are conducted. It is not clear to us if the heads of the Bill will achieve that.