HM Revenue and Customs

The complainant has requested information about liabilities outstanding from underpayments of PAYE, details of when those payments had been waived and methods of how they are collected. HMRC provided some information, explained other information was not available and applied the costs limit [section 12(1)] to other information. After the Commissioner’s involvement, it applied section 12(1) across the whole request. The Commissioner’s decision is that HMRC was entitled to rely on section 12(1) in this case. However, HMRC breached sections 16(1) and 17(5) in its handling of the complainant’s request. The Commissioner requires no remedial steps to be taken, because HMRC has remedied its breach of section 16(1) during the course of this investigation.