The appellant companies (P) appealed against a decision that legal advice given by accountants in respect of tax matters was not covered by legal advice privilege. The Revenue had issued a notice requiring disclosure of documents relating to a tax avoidance scheme. P refused to disclose documents containing legal advice from their accountants on the basis of legal advice privilege. The appeal was dismissed.

It was held the appeal would stretch the limits of legal advice privilege too greatly. Legal advice privilege would not be extended to communications in connection with advice given by professional people other than lawyers, even where that advice was legal advice which that person was qualified to give. The prospect of increasing the boundaries of legal advice privilege carried an unacceptable risk of uncertainty. Parliament should be the deciding body as to whether privilege should be extended and would only do so in exceptional circumstances. The matter had been discussed in Parliament and proposed to the executive, and Parliament had apparently chosen not to extend the privilege to accountants giving tax advice. It would be unfitting for the courts to have the power to make such decisions. There was consensus that the privilege was only applicable to the legal profession. For legal advice on matters such as tax to be privileged, the advice must be given by a lawyer. Legal advice privilege was reliant on the public interest in promoting access to legal advice and was independent from the status of the adviser. http://bit.ly/10Cr6eb