Guide to Authorising Someone to Act on Your Behalf with Revenue Scotland

Authorising Someone to Deal with Revenue Scotland for LBTT

You can give another person, such as a solicitor, accountant, friend, or relative, authority to deal with Revenue Scotland on your behalf. This allows Revenue Scotland to discuss your tax affairs with them and lets them act for you, but it does not transfer your tax liability. For LBTT, Revenue Scotland says you should use the relevant Authority to Act form, and where there is more than one buyer, each buyer must sign it.

• An authorised person can discuss your tax affairs, ask for information, request a refund, make a complaint, and represent you in an enquiry, review, or appeal.
• You can appoint either a professional adviser or a trusted helper, and you can give authority for all matters or only for a specific issue.
• If you want to authorise more than one person, Revenue Scotland should be told separately about each person and their role should be clearly explained.
• For joint LBTT buyers, one buyer cannot authorise a representative for everyone else; each buyer must sign the authority form.
• The authority stays in place until you tell Revenue Scotland about any change, so it is important to update or withdraw it if circumstances change.

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Authorising someone to deal with Revenue Scotland on your behalf

This page explains what it means to give another person authority to act for you in your dealings with Revenue Scotland, particularly for Land and Buildings Transaction Tax (LBTT). It matters because, unless Revenue Scotland has that authority, it may not be able to discuss your tax affairs with your solicitor, accountant, friend, or family member.

What this rule is about

Revenue Scotland allows a taxpayer to appoint another person to deal with its tax matters for them. That person might be a professional agent, such as a solicitor or accountant, or a non-professional trusted helper, such as a friend or relative.

The purpose of the authority is practical. It lets Revenue Scotland communicate with that person about your tax affairs and lets that person act for you within the scope of the authority you have given.

This is not the same thing as transferring the tax liability itself. The source material is about communication and representation: who Revenue Scotland can speak to, who can request things on your behalf, and who can represent you in disputes or enquiries.

What the official source says

Revenue Scotland says that, once authority to act has been given, it will be able to talk to the authorised person about your tax affairs and that person can act on your behalf.

According to the source, an authorised person can, for example:

• get information about and discuss your tax affairs
• request a refund or make a complaint for you
• represent you during a tax enquiry, review, or appeal

You can authorise either:

• an agent, such as a solicitor or accountant, or
• a trusted helper, such as a friend or relative

You can decide whether the authority covers all of your affairs with Revenue Scotland or only a specific matter. You can also authorise more than one person, provided each person is notified separately and it is made clear what each person is authorised to deal with.

Revenue Scotland says that you should use its Authority to Act form for the relevant tax. For LBTT, the relevant form is the LBTT authority form. Where there is more than one buyer, each buyer must sign the form.

The authority remains in place until you tell Revenue Scotland that something has changed. If you want to remove or change an authorised person, Revenue Scotland says you should contact it.

What this means in practice

If you are involved in an LBTT transaction, this authority is often important because the transaction may be handled by a solicitor, and later correspondence may need to go through that solicitor or another adviser.

Once authority is in place, Revenue Scotland may send your agent copies of reminders or notices that it sends to you. If Revenue Scotland needs to write to you directly, it says it will also send a copy to your agent or trusted adviser.

That can help avoid missed deadlines or misunderstandings, especially where:

• there is a repayment issue
• Revenue Scotland raises a query about the return
• there is a review or appeal
• more than one person is involved in the transaction

For joint buyers, the source makes one point especially clear: each buyer must sign the authority form. In practice, that matters because one buyer cannot simply assume that a solicitor or other representative automatically has authority to act for all buyers in relation to Revenue Scotland.

How to analyse it

If you are deciding whether an authority to act is needed, or whether an existing authority is wide enough, these are the main questions to ask:

• Who needs to speak to Revenue Scotland? Is it a solicitor, accountant, friend, or family member?
• What are they meant to deal with? All tax affairs, or only a specific LBTT matter?
• Is there more than one taxpayer involved? If so, has each person given authority?
• Are there multiple representatives? If so, has Revenue Scotland been told separately about each one, with a clear explanation of their role?
• Does the authority still reflect the current position, or does it need to be changed or withdrawn?

The key practical point is scope. Revenue Scotland allows you to limit the authority to a particular purpose. So, if you only want someone to deal with one transaction, one repayment issue, or one dispute, the authority should say so clearly.

Example

Illustration: A couple buy a property in Scotland and an LBTT return is submitted. Later, Revenue Scotland raises a query about the return. The couple want their solicitor to handle the correspondence. Revenue Scotland’s published position is that, where there is more than one buyer, each buyer must sign the authority to act form. If only one of them signs, Revenue Scotland may not treat the solicitor as authorised to act for both buyers.

Why this can be difficult in practice

The main difficulty is usually not the concept itself, but the detail of who is authorised and for what.

For example, people often assume that because a solicitor handled the purchase, Revenue Scotland can automatically discuss every later issue with that solicitor. The source material does not say that. It says you should use the Authority to Act form to authorise someone to act for you.

Another practical difficulty arises where several people are involved. Joint buyers may have different preferences about who should represent them. There may also be a distinction between a person who helped with the transaction and a person who is to deal with a later enquiry or appeal.

There can also be uncertainty if the authority given is vague. Revenue Scotland says you should explain clearly what each authorised person will be dealing with on your behalf. If that is not done, there may be avoidable delays or limits on what Revenue Scotland is prepared to discuss.

Key takeaways

• Authority to act lets Revenue Scotland deal with another person about your tax affairs, but it must be properly given.
• You can appoint a professional agent or a trusted helper, and you can limit the authority to specific matters.
• For LBTT matters involving more than one buyer, each buyer must sign the authority form.

This page was last updated on 24 March 2026

Useful article? You may find it helpful to read the original guidance here: Guide to Authorising Someone to Act on Your Behalf with Revenue Scotland

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