HMRC to accept service of legal proceedings by email

25 Sep 2020 12:38 PM

The service of new legal proceedings and pre-action letters on HMRC should be via email during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

Due to coronavirus (COVID-19), HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) has requested that, where possible, new legal proceedings and pre-action letters should be served via email rather than by post.

This is to ensure that, during the pandemic, we can protect our staff by reducing the handling of paper documents where possible.

For new legal proceedings

New legal proceedings in England and Wales which are required to be served on the Solicitor for HMRC can be sent by email to newproceedings@hmrc.gov.uk.

Pre-action letters

Any correspondence which is required to be sent to the Solicitor for HMRC in compliance with any pre-action protocol to the Civil Procedure Rules, including the Pre-Action Protocol for Judicial Review, can be sent by email to preactionletters@hmrc.gov.uk.

Unless you are requested to do so, please do not send hard copy duplicates.

Attachments

If you are including attachments with your email, please ensure they:

• are in a common format such as PDF or MS Word
• do not exceed 25mb (in total)

If you are likely to exceed the 25mb limit, please split the contents into smaller emails. If this is not practical, you should serve the principal documents (such as the claim form and particulars of claim) and ask HMRC to contact you to make alternative arrangements to serve the remaining documents.

Employment law claims

Please note that the service of employment law claims on HMRC, and associated documentation, must be sent to expertadviceservice@hmrc.gov.uk.

Other correspondence

These email addresses are for the service of new proceedings and pre-action letters only. They should not be used if you want to:

• request a review of a tax decision by HMRC - for this please follow the guidance on the GOV.UK page Disagree with a tax decision
• appeal to the First-tier Tribunal (Tax Chamber) - for this, please refer to the guidance on the GOV.UK page Appeal to the tax tribunal

Any other correspondence sent to these email addresses will be deleted unread.

For all proceedings (including in the Supreme Court) an HMRC lawyer will be allocated the case and all subsequent service should be effected on their, or any nominated successor’s, HMRC email address.

If you need to contact HMRC with a general query about your tax position, please see Contact HMRC.