---
title: "HMRC Information Requests and How Much You Must Disclose"
url: https://taxdisputes.co.uk/2026/09/hmrc-information-requests-and-how-much-you-must-disclose/
date: 2026-09-25
modified: 2026-09-25
lang: en
author: "Tax Dispute Solicitors"
description: "An HMRC information request under Schedule 36 of the Finance Act 2008 compels you to produce specified information and documents, but the power is not unlimited. Statutory records must be handed over and cannot be appealed, while everything else must be reasonably required to check your tax position. This guide sets out what HMRC can demand, what privilege and the statutory restrictions protect, the 30 day appeal deadline, and the penalties for getting it wrong."
categories:
  - "HMRC"
  - "Tax Investigation"
  - "Tax Issue"
  - "Tax Management Act 1970"
tags:
  - "Code of Practice 9"
  - "Financial Institution Notice"
  - "First-tier Tax Tribunal"
  - "HMRC compliance check"
  - "HMRC document request"
  - "HMRC enquiry"
  - "HMRC information notice"
  - "information notice penalties"
  - "judicial review HMRC"
  - "legal professional privilege"
  - "paragraph 29 appeal"
  - "reasonable excuse"
  - "reasonably required"
  - "Schedule 36 Finance Act 2008"
  - "statutory records"
  - "tax adviser privilege"
  - "taxpayer notice"
  - "third party notice"
image: https://taxdisputes.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/ChatGPT-Image-Sep-25-2026-06_58_36-PM-1024x576.png
word_count: 2184
---

# HMRC Information Requests and How Much You Must Disclose

***An HMRC information request is a formal notice under Schedule 36 of the Finance Act 2008 requiring you to provide specified information or produce specified documents so that HMRC can check your tax position. It is not a polite enquiry and it is not optional. It is also not unlimited, and the gap between what HMRC asks for and what you are actually obliged to hand over is where most taxpayers lose ground without realising it.***

Most people respond to these notices themselves, or let their accountant send everything in the file, and by the time a solicitor is instructed the disclosure has already shaped the enquiry. This guide sets out what HMRC can compel, what it cannot, and where the limits are worth enforcing. Our detailed note on [Schedule 36 notices and your rights and obligations](https://taxdisputes.co.uk/2026/03/schedule-36-notices-explained-your-rights-and-obligations/) covers the mechanics in further depth, and our guide to [understanding HMRC letters](https://taxdisputes.co.uk/2026/04/understanding-hmrc-letters/) explains how these notices sit within HMRC's wider escalation.

## What an Information Notice Actually Is

[Schedule 36](https://taxdisputes.co.uk/2026/03/schedule-36-notices-explained-your-rights-and-obligations/) gives an HMRC officer power to require a person to provide information or produce a document where it is reasonably required for the purpose of checking that person's tax position. The notice must specify what is sought, and it must state a period and manner of compliance that is itself reasonable. A letter asking for your cooperation is not a Schedule 36 notice, and the distinction matters because an informal request carries no penalty for refusal while a formal notice does.

Check the heading of the correspondence before you answer anything. HMRC frequently opens with an informal request precisely because voluntary disclosure avoids the statutory restrictions that apply to a notice. Material volunteered informally cannot be withdrawn later, and it is not subject to the protections discussed below. Our guidance on [HMRC compliance checks and how to respond](https://taxdisputes.co.uk/2026/03/hmrc-compliance-checks-powers-rights-and-how-to-respond/) explains how these requests usually arrive, and our [tax investigation solicitors](https://taxdisputes.co.uk/hmrc-tax-investigations-solicitors-london/) deal with the consequences of early over-disclosure regularly.

## The Different Notices HMRC Can Issue

A taxpayer notice under paragraph 1 is addressed to you and concerns your own tax position, and it is the form of notice most often seen in an [HMRC tax investigation](https://taxdisputes.co.uk/hmrc-tax-investigations-solicitors-london/). A third party notice under paragraph 2 is addressed to someone else about your affairs, and it ordinarily requires either your agreement or the approval of the First-tier Tribunal under paragraph 3. Paragraph 5 allows HMRC to seek information about persons whose identity is not known, which is how bulk data requests to platforms and intermediaries are made.

Paragraph 4A sits apart from the rest. It creates the Financial Institution Notice, which lets HMRC require information from a bank or similar institution without tribunal approval and without your consent, subject to internal authorisation. That power removed a safeguard that previously applied to third party requests, and we wrote about the change when it was proposed in our note on [HMRC's expanded powers to gather information from third parties](https://taxdisputes.co.uk/2020/10/hmrc-to-gain-further-powers-to-gather-information-from-third-parties/). If you learn that your bank has been approached, take advice from our [tax appeals solicitors](https://taxdisputes.co.uk/hmrc-tax-appeals-solicitors-london/) before responding to anything HMRC subsequently puts to you.

## Statutory Records: The Part You Cannot Argue About

Statutory records are the documents you are required by the Taxes Acts to keep, meaning your books, invoices, bank statements relating to the business, VAT records and the underlying accounting entries, all of which will already be in issue in any [HMRC compliance check](https://taxdisputes.co.uk/2026/03/hmrc-compliance-checks-powers-rights-and-how-to-respond/). Where a notice requires statutory records, paragraph 29(2) removes the right of appeal entirely. You cannot challenge that element of the notice, and refusing to produce it simply generates penalties.

This is the single most useful distinction to grasp early. Arguing about material that is plainly a statutory record wastes the only goodwill available and weakens the arguments that actually have merit. The productive question is whether each specific item HMRC has listed genuinely falls within the statutory record category or has been bundled in alongside it, because the two are treated very differently once an appeal is lodged with the [First-tier Tax Tribunal](https://taxdisputes.co.uk/first-tier-tax-tribunal-solicitors-london/). Our [specialist representation](https://taxdisputes.co.uk/legal-representation/) starts with exactly that line-by-line exercise.

## What "Reasonably Required" Actually Limits

Everything outside the statutory records must clear the reasonably required threshold, and this is where most [appeals against a notice](https://taxdisputes.co.uk/hmrc-appeal-lawyers-london/) are won or lost. HMRC has to be able to explain why each item is needed to check your tax position, and a request that is speculative, disproportionate or aimed at a different taxpayer does not meet that standard. Requests for entire categories of correspondence, or for personal records with no demonstrated connection to the tax at issue, are frequently vulnerable.

Tribunals do test this. In *Kevin Betts v HMRC* [2013] UKFTT 430 the First-tier Tribunal set aside an information notice because HMRC had not established the reason to suspect that the legislation required, and we analysed the decision in our case study on [a successful appeal against a Schedule 36 information notice](https://taxdisputes.co.uk/2013/12/disclosure-to-hmrc-implications-of-schedule-36-information-notice/). Where an officer has simply asserted a suspicion without foundation, the notice can fail, and our [HMRC appeal lawyers](https://taxdisputes.co.uk/hmrc-appeal-lawyers-london/) press that point where the material supports it.

## What You Are Not Required to Hand Over

Legally privileged communications are protected by paragraph 23, a protection we assert routinely when acting under our [legal representation](https://taxdisputes.co.uk/legal-representation/) service. Advice passing between you and your solicitor for the purpose of giving or receiving legal advice does not have to be produced, and privilege is not lost because the subject matter is tax. Accountants occupy a weaker position. A separate restriction protects certain communications with a tax adviser, but it is narrower than legal advice privilege and it does not cover the underlying records or the adviser's working papers in the way many clients assume.

That difference has been tested and confirmed. The High Court held that accountants' reports prepared for tax structuring were not covered by litigation privilege, a decision we examined in our note on [accountants' reports and litigation privilege](https://taxdisputes.co.uk/2020/10/high-court-re-confirms-accountant-consultant-reports-are-not-protected-by-litigation-legal-privilege-disclosure-hmrc-advice/). Two further limits are worth knowing. Paragraph 18 means you need not produce a document that is not in your possession or power, and paragraph 19 means you generally need not produce a document that originated more than six years before the date of the notice unless an authorised officer has given or approved it. Neither point is usually volunteered by HMRC, and we raise them in our work on [HMRC tax investigations](https://taxdisputes.co.uk/hmrc-tax-investigations-solicitors-london/) where they apply.

## Extra Protection Once You Have Filed a Return

Where you have delivered a return for the relevant period, paragraph 21 restricts when HMRC may issue a taxpayer notice at all, a restriction explained alongside the other limits in our note on [Schedule 36 rights and obligations](https://taxdisputes.co.uk/2026/03/schedule-36-notices-explained-your-rights-and-obligations/). Broadly, the officer must either have an enquiry window still open, or satisfy one of the statutory conditions, the most commonly relied upon being a reason to suspect that an amount may have been understated or that a relief has been claimed excessively.

The practical consequence is that a notice issued long after the enquiry window has closed needs a proper foundation, and HMRC must be able to articulate it. This was the ground on which the notice failed in the case referred to above. If a notice has landed years after the return went in, the first question is whether paragraph 21 has been satisfied rather than whether the documents exist, and our guidance on [HMRC internal review and appeals](https://taxdisputes.co.uk/hmrc-internal-review-appeals-solicitors-london/) explains the routes for putting that in issue.

## Your Right of Appeal and the Deadline That Ends It

Paragraph 29 gives a right of [appeal](https://taxdisputes.co.uk/hmrc-tax-appeals-solicitors-london/) against a taxpayer notice or against any requirement within it, and the appeal must be brought within 30 days. The tribunal may confirm the notice, vary it, or set it aside, so a partially successful appeal that narrows an overbroad request is a realistic outcome rather than an all or nothing gamble.

Two exclusions remove the right altogether. There is no appeal against a requirement to produce statutory records, and there is no appeal where the tribunal approved the notice before it was issued. Against a third party notice the recipient's grounds are narrower still, being essentially that compliance would be unduly onerous. Where HMRC has acted outside its powers rather than merely reached a debatable view, [judicial review of the decision](https://taxdisputes.co.uk/judicial-review-applications-against-hmrc-challenge-decision-advice/) may be the appropriate route, and our [tribunal solicitors](https://taxdisputes.co.uk/first-tier-tax-tribunal-solicitors-london/) advise on which forum fits.

## What Happens If You Do Not Comply

Paragraph 39 imposes an initial [penalty](https://taxdisputes.co.uk/hmrc-penalties/) of £300 for failing to comply with an information notice. Paragraph 40 adds a daily default penalty of up to £60 for each day the failure continues. Paragraph 40A provides a penalty of up to £3,000 where inaccurate information or documents are provided, which is why a rushed and careless response can cost more than a late one. A reasonable excuse defence is available under paragraph 45, assessed against all the circumstances of the case.

Beyond the fixed amounts, paragraph 50 allows the Upper Tribunal to impose a tax-related penalty where the failure is continuing and significant tax is at risk. Penalties assessed under Schedule 36 can themselves be appealed, and our page on [HMRC penalties](https://taxdisputes.co.uk/hmrc-penalties/) sets out the categories and the challenges available. Unpaid penalties and tax then feed into HMRC's collection process, which for a company can escalate as described in our note on [when HMRC enforcement becomes insolvency action](https://windinguppetitionsolicitors.co.uk/when-hmrc-enforcement-becomes-insolvency-action/).

## Compliance Check, Enquiry or Information Notice: Which Have I Received?

People search all three phrases interchangeably, and HMRC's own correspondence encourages the confusion by using compliance check as a general label, which is why we set out the escalation stages separately in our guide to [understanding HMRC letters](https://taxdisputes.co.uk/2026/04/understanding-hmrc-letters/). The distinction that matters is the power being exercised and the consequence attached to it, not the word on the letterhead.

A compliance check is HMRC's umbrella term for the process of checking a return or position, explained further in our guide to [HMRC compliance check powers and rights](https://taxdisputes.co.uk/2026/03/hmrc-compliance-checks-powers-rights-and-how-to-respond/). An information notice is the statutory instrument used within that process to compel disclosure, and it carries penalties and appeal rights of its own. A Code of Practice 9 letter is something else entirely, since it means HMRC suspects deliberate conduct and is offering the Contractual Disclosure Facility, a process we set out on our page dealing with [Code of Practice 9 investigations](https://taxdisputes.co.uk/tax-evasion-hmrc-code-practice-9-investigations/). Treating a Code of Practice 9 letter as an ordinary document request is the most expensive error in this area.

## Urgency: The Deadlines You Cannot Recover

The appeal window against an information notice is 30 days from the date of the notice, and our guidance on [HMRC internal review and appeals](https://taxdisputes.co.uk/hmrc-internal-review-appeals-solicitors-london/) explains how to protect it. Miss it and the notice stands however overbroad it was, leaving compliance and penalties as the only remaining issues. The compliance date stated in the notice runs separately, so an appeal needs to be lodged while the clock on production is still running.

The wider point is that disclosure is not reversible. Documents produced, explanations given and admissions made during the information gathering stage shape the assessment, the behaviour finding and the penalty that follow. Advice taken at the point the notice arrives costs a fraction of correcting the position two years later, and you can send us the notice through our [case assessment form](https://taxdisputes.co.uk/legal-case-assessment/) for a view on scope before you reply.

## How We Can Help

[We](https://taxdisputes.co.uk/hmrc-tax-investigations-solicitors-london/) are a dual-qualified City of London firm. Our chambers are at 4 Middle Temple Lane in Middle Temple, immediately next to the Royal Courts of Justice. Because we are both solicitors and barristers, the person who assesses the notice is the person who argues the appeal, and you are not paying two sets of professionals to learn the same file twice.

We review information notices line by line, separate the statutory records from the rest, assert privilege where it exists, negotiate the scope of production with the officer, and appeal to the tribunal where the notice goes further than the legislation permits. We also act on the [penalties](https://taxdisputes.co.uk/hmrc-penalties/) that follow non-compliance, conduct [internal reviews and appeals](https://taxdisputes.co.uk/hmrc-internal-review-appeals-solicitors-london/), and represent clients in the [First-tier Tax Tribunal](https://taxdisputes.co.uk/first-tier-tax-tribunal-solicitors-london/).

### Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

1. Do I have to give HMRC everything it asks for?
No. Statutory records must be produced and cannot be appealed under paragraph 29(2), but everything else must be reasonably required to check your tax position. Our note on [Schedule 36 rights and obligations](https://taxdisputes.co.uk/2026/03/schedule-36-notices-explained-your-rights-and-obligations/) explains where the line falls.

2. Can I appeal an information notice?

Yes, within 30 days under paragraph 29, unless the requirement concerns statutory records or the tribunal approved the notice in advance. The tribunal can vary a notice as well as set it aside, and our [HMRC appeal lawyers](https://taxdisputes.co.uk/hmrc-appeal-lawyers-london/) assess the prospects.

3. Is my accountant's advice protected from disclosure?

Less than most people expect. Legal advice privilege under paragraph 23 protects solicitor communications, while the tax adviser restriction is narrower and does not extend to underlying records, as our note on [accountants' reports and privilege](https://taxdisputes.co.uk/2020/10/high-court-re-confirms-accountant-consultant-reports-are-not-protected-by-litigation-legal-privilege-disclosure-hmrc-advice/) explains.

4. Can HMRC go to my bank without telling me?

Yes. A Financial Institution Notice under paragraph 4A can be issued without your consent and without tribunal approval. We covered the introduction of this power in our note on [third party information powers](https://taxdisputes.co.uk/2020/10/hmrc-to-gain-further-powers-to-gather-information-from-third-parties/).

5. What are the penalties for not complying?

£300 initially under paragraph 39, then up to £60 per day under paragraph 40, with up to £3,000 under paragraph 40A for inaccurate information and a reasonable excuse defence under paragraph 45. See our page on [HMRC penalties](https://taxdisputes.co.uk/hmrc-penalties/).