Freedom of Information Team
S1715
6 Floor
Anthony Mil s
Central Mail Unit
Newcastle Upon Tyne
By email:
NE98 1ZZ
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx.xxx
Email xxx.xxxxxxx@xxxx.xxx.xx
Web
www.gov.uk
Date: 30 November 2023
Our ref:
FOI2023/94797
Dear Anthony Mil s,
Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA)
Thank you for your request, which was received on 25 November, for the following
information:
“How many times, in each year since 2007 did HMRC give an agent authority to act for a
previously unrepresented taxpayer?”
Our response
We can confirm that we hold the information you seek. However, providing it would exceed
the FOIA cost limit. We have therefore refused your request unde
r section 12(1) of the FOIA.
Section 12(1) FOIA al ows a public authority to refuse to comply with a request for
information if the authority estimates that the cost of compliance would exceed the
‘appropriate limit’, as defined by the Freedom of Information and Data Protection
(Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004 (the Regulations). In the case of HMRC this
is £600, or 24 hours charged at £25 per hour.
Regulation 4(3) of the Fees Regulations al ows the following activities to be taken into
account when calculating the cost of compliance:
• determining whether the information is held;
• locating the information, or a document which may contain the information;
• retrieving the information, or a document containing it; and
• extracting the information from the document containing it.
HMRC does not have a central record of this information, which would be held on individual
customer records. The only way to obtain the data would be to manual y review each of
those records, which are in the mil ions, to see who currently has an agent acting on their
behalf and then record in how many of these cases the agent was the first one appointed in
a particular year. We have established that this task would far exceed the FOIA cost limit as
set out above under Regulation 4(3).
Normal y we would explore how you might be able to refine your request so that it did not
exceed the FOIA cost limit. However, in this case, we cannot see any scope for doing so
due to the number of records involved in reviewing.
If you need extra support, for example if you have a disability, a mental health condition, or
do not speak English/Welsh, go t
o www.gov.uk and search for ‘get help from HMRC’.
Text Relay service prefix number – 18001
OFFICIAL
Outside of the FOIA
Although we are unable to answer your FOIA request, we can provide some related
information on a discretionary basis.
Please refer to the table below which details the number of 64-8 forms that have been
received each year from 2017-18 to the end of August this year. As per our retention
periods, we do not this data going back further than 6 years plus the current tax year.
Tax Year 64-8 Forms Received
2017-18
1,079,904
2018-19
1,088,603
2019-20
1,019,269
2020-21
698,006
2021-22
617,994
2022-23
952,182
2023-24*
317,348
*To end of August
The numbers provided are the number of forms received in the year;
• If a customer sends their request in a letter, then their request would not be counted
or included in these numbers.
• If a customer has made multiple requests over the period, then they wil appear
multiple times in the numbers.
If you are not satisfied with our reply, you may request a review within 40 working days of
receiving this letter by emaili
ng xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx@xxxx.xxx.xx or by writing to our
address at the top of this letter.
If you are not content with the outcome of an internal review you c
an complain to the
Information Commissioner’s Office.
Yours sincerely,
HM Revenue and Customs
2 OFFICIAL
