On Fri, Apr 24, 2009 at 4:15 PM, Michael Peel email@mikepeel.net wrote:
Second, learning how to write an encyclopaedia - something that everyone who contributes to Wikipedia does - is inherently an educational experience. To support that naturally supports the advancement of education. To quote a law from 1957 - over 50 years ago - simply shows how out of date the law, and hence the goverment, is in this respect.
To be fair with them: It was a court case, I am pretty sure changes have been made to the applicable law since then, but apparently not to this particular part of it (resp. its interpretation). You can of course try to make a precedent case out of this, by pursuing it up to the higher courts.
Is there any indication in the letter as to what the options are? From a quick glance at the HMRC website, it seems that their Complaints procedure would not apply, as we're talking about a formal decision here. They have two internal procedures, called 'Review' and 'Appeal'. It should be marked in the letter whether there is a Review option (by HMRC itself) or an Appeal option to the independent tribunal (http://www.tribunals.gov.uk/tax/). It is possible that both of them are not available, which means that we would need to seek Judicial Review at the Administrative Division of the High Court...we definitely want to have a lawyer at least for Appeal or Judicial Review, and it would be good for HMRC-internal review.
M.