I can see nothing in s3 or s4 of the Act, nor in the Claims and Notifications Regs that allows the Revenue to withhold a claim form, under any circumstances. Seems to me the Revenue are confusing the right to make a claim, with the subsequent right of the Revenue to refuse an application. However, I do not think we should be too surprised by the nature of the presumption.
Revenue staff sending out forms should not be acting as decision makers, because refusing to send a form is to my mind, effectively a decision to refuse entitlement. If so, claimants would then be entitled to a decision letter, which of course would be non sensical.
The parallel would appear to be DLA/AA, where there is some telephone filtering, before a claim form is sent out. The difference is, if you insist on being sent a claim form, our DBC colleagues will (or are supposed to) send you a form.
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