Customs Act 2015 section 46

Determination of appeal

Section 46 sets out the process and time limits for how the Revenue Commissioners determine customs appeals, including the delegation of decision-making to designated officers and the consequences when a decision is not made within the required timeframe.

• Appeals must normally be determined within 30 days of lodgement, though this period can be extended for reasonable grounds provided the appellant is notified before the original deadline expires.
• The Commissioners may delegate appeal decisions to designated officers, but only one officer may determine any given appeal, and that officer must not be the person who made the original decision being appealed.
• The appellant must be notified in writing of the determination and the reasons behind it.
• If the Commissioners fail to determine the appeal within the required period, the appeal is automatically deemed to have been rejected on the last day of that period — but this deemed rejection falls away if the Commissioners subsequently make an actual determination before the Appeal Commissioners issue their own decision under section 949AJ of the Taxes Consolidation Act 1997.