Finance Act, 1988

Appeals.

17.—(1) No appeal may be made against—

(a) a notice of preliminary tax under section 12 ,

(b) the amount of any income, profits or gains or the amount of any allowance, deduction or relief specified in an assessment or an amended assessment made on a chargeable person for a relevant chargeable period where the inspector has determined that amount by accepting without the alteration of and without departing from the statement or statements or the particular or particulars with regard to income, profits or gains or allowances, deductions or reliefs specified in the return delivered by the chargeable person for that chargeable period, or

(c) the amount of any income, profits or gains or the amount of any allowance, deduction or relief specified in an assessment or an amended assessment made on a chargeable person for a relevant chargeable period where that amount had been agreed between the inspector and the chargeable person, or any person authorised by the chargeable person in that behalf, prior to the making of the assessment or the amendment of the assessment, as the case may be.

(2) (a) Where—

(i) a chargeable person makes default in the delivery of a return, or

(ii) the inspector is not satisfied with the return which has been delivered by a chargeable person, or has received any information as to its insufficiency,

and the inspector makes an assessment in accordance with any of the provisions referred to in section 13 (3), no appeal shall lie against that assessment until such time as—

(I) in a case to which paragraph (a) (i) applies, the chargeable person delivers the return, and

(II) in a case to which either subparagraph (i) or (ii) of paragraph (a) applies, the chargeable person pays or has paid an amount of tax on foot of the assessment which is not less than the tax which would be payable on foot of the assessment if the assessment were made in all respects by reference to the statements and particulars contained in the return delivered by the chargeable person,

and the time for bringing an appeal against the assessment shall be treated as commencing at the earliest date on which both the return has been delivered and the said amount of tax has been paid and references in this subsection to an assessment shall be construed as including references to any amendment of the assessment which is made before the said earliest date.

(b) References in this subsection to an amount of tax shall be construed as including any amount of interest which would be due and payable under section 550 of the Income Tax Act, 1967 , on that tax at the date of payment of the tax together with any costs incurred or other amounts which may be charged or levied in pursuing the collection of the tax contained in the assessment or the assessment as amended, as the case may be.

(3) Subject to the foregoing provisions of this section, where an assessment is amended under section 14 (not being an amendment made by reason of the determination of an appeal), the chargeable person may appeal against the assessment as so amended in all respects as if it were an assessment made on the date of the amendment and the notice of the assessment as so amended were a notice of the assessment, save that the chargeable person shall have no further right of appeal, in relation to matters other than additions to, deletions from, or alterations in the assessment, made by reason of the amendment, than he would have had if the assessment had not been amended.

(4) Where an appeal is brought against an assessment or an amended assessment made on a chargeable person for any relevant chargeable period, the chargeable person shall specify in the notice of appeal—

(a) each amount or matter in the assessment or amended assessment with which he is aggrieved, and

(b) the grounds, in detail, of his appeal as respects each such amount or matter.

(5) Where, as respects an amount or matter to which a notice of appeal relates, the notice does not comply with the provisions of subsection (4), the notice shall, in so far as it relates to that amount or matter, be invalid and the appeal concerned shall, in so far as it relates to that amount or matter, be deemed not to have been brought.

(6) The chargeable person shall not be entitled to rely on any ground of appeal that is not specified in the notice of appeal unless the Appeal Commissioners, or the judge of the Circuit Court, as the case may be, are or is satisfied that the ground could not reasonably have been stated in the notice.