Dear HM Revenue and Customs,

Regarding Accelerated Payment Notice known as APN please can you let me know the following information:

1) The total number of individuals who are deemed to have entered in to Disguised Remuneration schemes who have received APNs.
2) The total number of individuals who are NOT deemed to have entered in to Disguised Remuneration schemes who have received APNs.
3) For each of the groups of individuals in 1) and 2) the number of APNs closed as a result of the individual settling by group of individuals 1) and 2).

Yours faithfully,

Trevor Price

Dear FOI Central Team,

I would like to remind you that is FOI request was submitted on 5th Jan 2022, by law the authority should had responded promptly and by 2nd Feb 2022. Please reply with the information I requested promptly.

Yours sincerely,

Trevor Price

Dear HM Revenue and Customs,

Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of Information reviews.

I am writing to request an internal review of HM Revenue and Customs's handling of my FOI request 'The number of APN's related to and not related to DR Schemes'.

Your reply states the following:

"The Counter-Avoidance case management system (which records the number of accelerated payments) is currently undergoing essential maintenance and improvements, which means we are currently unable to evaluate the data on that system to provide the breakdown you have requested. We started the maintenance works in January 2022, and currently expect that they will take around four months to complete. We therefore advise that you make a new request then"

From the above I am assuming that the Counter-avoidance case management system will not be available "currently" for 4 months from the date of your reply until about May/June 2022.

As I have worked in I.T for many years, I find the above both strange and shocking, I would had thought
that the current live release of the "CA case management system" would still be available, while changes to improve the system are being developed and tested. Normally when changing I.T systems a plan is put in place to keep the current system up and running, while a scheduled date is agreed for the cut-over to the improved system. Questions (1) Does this plan exist? (2) is it possible to have sight of this plan?

Its shocking that a government department such as HMRC cannot give me simple figures about the amount / count of APNs. I also find it shocking that such an important system will not be available to answer CA case enquires from citizens, taxpayers and their tax advisers until May/June 2022. As it will impact their cases and impose further interest and penalties, through no fault of their own, while the system is down. Question: (3) What alternative / backup plans have been put in to place to avoid this situation?

Therefore I would of thought its in the public interests for citizens, taxpayes and tax advisors to know about this outage, so alternative arrangements could be made. Question: (4) Has this outage not been made public? (5) if not why not?

With reference to page 5 of this ICO guidance re timescales you must have known you could not respond within the 20 days, therefore you should have told me within 20 working days, Question: (6) why did you take so long?

Therefore saying the system is under maintenance seems to be delaying tactic to stop the release of the APN information I requested (7) Why is that?

A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/t...

Yours faithfully,

Trevor Price