Category: Taxes Management

Regina v Commissioners of Inland Revenue ex parte Michael Bishopp (for and on Behalf of Partners In Price Waterhouse (a Firm)): Admn 18 Dec 1997

Citations:

[1997] EWHC Admin 1156, [1999] STC 531

Links:

Bailii

Cited by:

Cited – Autologic Holdings Plc and others v Commissioners of Inland Revenue HL 28-Jul-2005
Taxpayer companies challenged the way that the revenue restricted claims for group Corporation Tax relief for subsidiary companies in Europe. The issue was awaiting a decision of the European Court. The Revenue said that the claims now being made by . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Taxes Management, Litigation Practice

Updated: 26 May 2022; Ref: scu.138101

Revenue and Customs v Hill (Tax): UTTC 14 Feb 2018

PROCEDURE – refusal of application by HMRC to strike out appeals against assessments to excise duty and penalty – whether FTT erred in law in refusing application to strike out appeal against duty assessment – appeal allowed – Tribunal Procedure (First-tier Tribunal) (Tax Chamber) Rules 2009, rule 10(1)(b) – whether FTT erred in law in awarding costs against HMRC for acting unreasonably in bringing proceedings – appeal allowed in part – use of striking out in relation to penalty appeals

Citations:

[2018] UKUT 45 (TCC)

Links:

Bailii

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Taxes Management

Updated: 26 May 2022; Ref: scu.604788

Boughton, Regina (on the Application Of) v Her Majesty’s Treasury: Admn 25 Jul 2005

The applicants sought to control the sums they paid by way of taxation so as not to contribute to non peaceful objects.
Held: Both English law and human rights jurisprudence would prevent the claim, and the application for a review failed.

Judges:

Collins J

Citations:

[2005] EWHC 1914 (Admin)

Links:

Bailii

Statutes:

European Convention on Human Rights 9

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Citing:

Cited – Arrowsmith v United Kingdom ECHR 12-Oct-1978
(Commission) Article 9 is apt to include a belief such as pacifism, which could be a philosophy. However, Miss Arrowsmith distributed leaflets to soldiers, urging them to decline service in Northern Ireland. This was dictated by her pacifist views. . .
Cited – Regina v Secretary of State for Education and Employment and others ex parte Williamson and others HL 24-Feb-2005
The appellants were teachers in Christian schools who said that the blanket ban on corporal punishment interfered with their religious freedom. They saw moderate physical discipline as an essential part of educating children in a Christian manner. . .
Cited – Regina v Special Adjudicator ex parte Ullah; Regina v Secretary of State for the Home Department HL 17-Jun-2004
The applicants had had their requests for asylum refused. They complained that if they were removed from the UK, their article 3 rights would be infringed. If they were returned to Pakistan or Vietnam they would be persecuted for their religious . .
Cited – C v United Kingdom ECHR 15-Dec-1983
(Commission) ‘Article 9 primarily protects the sphere of personal beliefs and religious creeds, ie, the area which is sometimes called the forum of the internal. In addition, it protects acts which are intimately linked with these attitudes, such as . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Taxes Management, Human Rights

Updated: 26 May 2022; Ref: scu.229871

Clarity Copiers (Western) Ltd v Revenue and Customs: FTTTx 11 Dec 2013

FTTTx Penalties for late payment of PAYE – reasonable excuse -penalties unfair by reference to size of business and amount of tax due-notification of penalties from HMRC inadequate – held – no reasonable excuse – penalties not unfair or disproportionate – HMRC notification procedure matter of administrative law outside Tribunal’s remit – appeal dismissed.

Citations:

[2013] UKFTT 750 (TC)

Links:

Bailii

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Taxes Management

Updated: 26 May 2022; Ref: scu.519620

Commissioners of Inland Revenue v McGuckian: HL 21 May 1997

Steps which had been inserted into a commercial transaction, but which had no purpose other than the saving of tax are to be disregarded when assessing the tax effect of the scheme. The modern approach to statutory construction is to have regard to the purpose of a particular provision and interpret its language, so far as possible, in a way which best gives effect to that purpose. The particular vice of formalism in the interpretation had been the insistence of the courts on treating every transaction which had an individual legal identity as having its own separate tax consequences, whatever might be the terms of the statute.
Lord Steyn said that it was: ‘those two features – literal interpretation of tax statutes and the formalistic insistence on examining steps in a composite scheme separately – [which] allowed tax avoidance schemes to flourish.’ Lord Browne-Wilkinson: ‘The approach pioneered in Ramsay and developed in later decisions is an approach to construction, viz. that construing tax legislation, the statutory provisions are to be applied to the substance of the transaction, disregarding artificial steps in the composite transaction or series of transactions inserted only for the purpose of seeking to obtain a tax advantage. The question is not what was the effect of the insertion of the artificial steps but what was its purpose. Having identified the artificial steps inserted with that purpose and disregarded them, then what is left is to apply the statutory language of the taxing Act to the transaction carried through stripped of its artificial steps.’

Judges:

Lord Steyn, Lord Browne-Wilkinson

Citations:

Times 20-Jun-1997, Gazette 09-Jul-1997, [1997] UKHL 22, [1997] 1 WLR 991, [1997] 3 All ER 817

Links:

House of Lords, Bailii

Statutes:

Income and Corporation Taxes Act 1970 478

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Citing:

Cited – W T Ramsay Ltd v Inland Revenue Commissioners HL 12-Mar-1981
The taxpayers used schemes to create allowable losses, and now appealed assessment to tax. The schemes involved a series of transactions none of which were a sham, but which had the effect of cancelling each other out.
Held: If the true nature . .
Cited – Furniss (Inspector of Taxes) v Dawson HL 9-Feb-1983
The transfer of shares to a subsidiary as part of a planned scheme immediately to transfer them to an outside purchaser was regarded as a taxable disposition to the outside purchaser rather than an exempt transfer to a group company. In defined . .
Cited – Inland Revenue Commissioners v Plummer HL 1-Nov-1979
Although transactions were integrated as part of a preconceived scheme which was commercially marketed and that had no other conceivable purpose than that of saving surtax, the construction of the statute compelled the acceptance of a fiscal result . .
Cited – Inland Revenue Commissioners v Duke of Westminster HL 7-May-1935
The Duke’s gardener was paid weekly, but to reduce tax, his solicitors drew up a deed in which it was said that the earnings were not really wages, but were an annual payment payable by weekly instalments.
Held: To find out what the true . .
Cited – Pryce v Monmouthshire Canal and Railway Cos 1879
A taxpayer is entitled to stand on a literal construction of the words used regardless of the purpose of the statute. . .
Cited – Cape Brandy Syndicate v Inland Revenue Commissioners CA 1921
Rowlatt J said: ‘In a taxing Act one has to look merely at what is clearly said. There is no room for any intendment. There is no equity about a tax. There is no presumption as to a tax. Nothing is to be read in, nothing is to be implied’ and . .

Cited by:

Cited – Barclays Mercantile Business Finance Ltd v Mawson (HM Inspector of Taxes) HL 25-Nov-2004
The company had paid substantial sums out in establishing a gas pipeline, and claimed those sums against its tax as capital allowances. The transaction involved a sale and leaseback arrangement which the special commissioners had found to be a . .
Cited – Green and Another v Inland Revenue ChD 11-Jan-2005
The deceased died intestate and with a negative valued personal estate, but with assets in trusts, including a revocable life interest in property. The question was whether his debts could be set off against the trusts interests to reduce them below . .
Cited – Trennery v West (Inspector of Taxes) HL 27-Jan-2005
The House considered the application of the section to ‘flip-flop trusts’. The section allocated liability to charge on gains within a settlement under certain circumstances onto the settlor, and at his rate of tax. Assets were allocated to two . .
Cited – Peter John St. Barbe Green, David Robert Mitson (Trustees of the Will of Consuelo Dowager Duchess of Manchester v the Commissioners of Inland Revenue ChD 11-Jan-2005
The taxpayer appealed a notice of determination of liability of the estate for Inheritance Tax purposes. He sought to set off an excess of liabilities over assets in the deceased’s own estate against assets held in settlements.
Held: The . .
Cited – Norglen Ltd (In Liquidation) v Reeds Rains Prudential Ltd and Others; Circuit Systems Ltd (In Liquidation) and Another v Zuken-Redac HL 1-Dec-1997
An assignment of a cause of action by a company in liquidation was valid, even though the dominant purpose was to avoid having to give security for costs, and to get legal aid. In dismissing the argument that the transactions were a device to defeat . .
Cited – Ingram and Palmer-Tomkinson (Executors of the Estate of Lady Jane Lindsay Morgan Ingram Deceased) v Commissioners of Inland Revenue CA 28-Jul-1997
The deceased had first conveyed property to her solicitor. Leases back were then created in her favour, and then the freeholds were conveyed at her direction to her children and grandchildren. They were potentially exempt transfers.
Held: . .
Cited – Greenalls Management Ltd v Customs and Excise HL 12-May-2005
Volumes of vodka were transferred from a secure warehouse to a carrier for export. They were diverted, and not exported and the Customs sought the unpaid duty from the warehouse. The Directive provided that duty was payable on the ‘release for . .
Cited – HM Revenue and Customs v Salaried Persons Postal Loans Ltd ChD 7-Apr-2006
The company had ceased trading, but rental income was still generated from its former premises. The Revenue sought to include the receipt in calculations of whether the company was entitled to a small company corporation tax rate. The Revenue . .
Cited – Scottish Widows Plc v Revenue and Customs SC 6-Jul-2011
The taxpayer insurance company had transferred sums from accounts designated as Capital Reserves. The Revenue said that these were properly part of the profit and loss accounts for the respective tax years, and chargeable receipts.
Held: The . .
Cited – UBS Ag and Another v Revenue and Customs SC 9-Mar-2016
UBS AG devised an employee bonus scheme to take advantage of the provisions of Chapter 2 of the 2003 Act, with the sole purpose other than tax avoidance, and such consequential advantages as would flow from tax avoidance. Several pre-ordained steps . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Income Tax, Taxes Management

Updated: 23 May 2022; Ref: scu.135195

Eurochoice Ltd v Revenue and Customs: FTTTx 5 Nov 2020

Procedure – Respondents application for order that appellant and its director be jointly and severally liable to pay costs of and incidental to appeal – Whether Tribunal has jurisdiction to make costs order against non-party – Yes – Whether such direction appropriate having regard to circumstances of the case – Yes – Whether party entitled to rely on unavailable decision – No – Application allowed

Citations:

[2020] UKFTT 449 (TC)

Links:

Bailii

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Taxes Management, Costs

Updated: 22 May 2022; Ref: scu.656845

Dong and Another v National Crime Agency: FTTTx 27 Jan 2014

POSTPONEMENT OF TAX APPLICATIONS – whether third appellant’s application should be adjourned until further evidence obtained – no- whether tribunal had jurisdiction to entertain either application as lodged more than 30 days after letter treated as SOCA’s determination – yes – because that letter was not a determination under s 55(3)(a) but a later letter from SOCA was such a determination and applications were made within 30 days of this later letter -postponement application of second appellant refused as no reasonable grounds for belief in overcharge to tax – postponement application of third appellant allowed as reasonable grounds for belief in overcharge to tax

Citations:

[2014] UKFTT 128 (TC)

Links:

Bailii

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Taxes Management

Updated: 22 May 2022; Ref: scu.521680

Brit College Ltd v Revenue and Customs (Procedure : Other): FTTTx 7 Dec 2018

Procedure – application for stay of proceedings and application to strike the appeal out in part – full findings of fact and reasons for granting the stay and refusing the strike out application – HMRC v RBS Deutschland Holdings GmbH, HMRC v Fairford Group plc and Three Rivers District Council (No 3) applied

Citations:

[2018] UKFTT 707 (TC)

Links:

Bailii

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Taxes Management

Updated: 21 May 2022; Ref: scu.632434

NCM 2000 Ltd, Regina (on The Application of) v HM Revenue and Customs: Admn 22 May 2015

Swift DBE J: ‘application by the Applicant, NCM 2000 Ltd, for permission to bring a claim for judicial review of a decision by the Respondent, the Commissioners of HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC). The decision in respect of which the application is made is a decision to refuse the Applicant’s claim for compensation for economic loss caused by what the Applicant claims was a misdirection, incorrect advice or a mistake by one or more of the Respondent’s officers as to the liability to value added tax (VAT) of supplies made by the Applicant and by its predecessors-in-title, a partnership trading as Northern Computer Markets, which has since been dissolved.’

Judges:

Swift DBE J

Citations:

[2015] EWHC 1342 (Admin)

Links:

Bailii

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Taxes Management, Negligence

Updated: 20 May 2022; Ref: scu.547082

Williams and Humbert Ltd v W and H Trade Marks (Jersey) Ltd: HL 1986

There had been an expropriation by Spanish decrees of shares in a Spanish company whose English subsidiary had rights in trade marks which it had sold to a Jersey company. The Spanish and English companies sought certain relief in relation to the trade marks, but the dispossessed proprietors sought to argue that the Spanish decrees should not be recognised because they were penal or confiscatory. The defence was rejected on the ground that the claimants’ case did not depend on the Spanish decrees, but arose under the general law. The House considered the rule that an English court could not be used to enforce the collection of foreign taxes. Lord Mackay looked at the authorities: ‘From the decision in the Buchanan case [1955] AC 516 counsel for the appellants sought to derive a general principle that even when an action is raised at the instance of a legal person distinct from the foreign government and even where the cause of action relied upon does not depend to any extent on the foreign law in question nevertheless if the action is brought at the instigation of the foreign government and the proceeds of the action would be applied by the foreign government for the purposes of a penal revenue or other public law of the foreign State relief cannot be given. It has to be observed that in the Buchanan case the action was being pursued by a person whose title as liquidator of the company depended on his having been appointed by a petition to the court in Scotland on behalf of the Inland Revenue, that the ground of action was that the transactions being attacked in the proceedings in Dublin were ultra vires and dishonest because there existed at the time that they were effected in Scotland a claim by the Inland Revenue which the transactions were designed to defeat, and that if no such claim existed the defendant would have been entitled to retain the subject matter of the claim. Most important there was an outstanding revenue claim in Scotland against the company which the whole proceeds of the action apart from the expenses of the action and the liquidation would be used to meet. No other interest was involved. That this was regarded as of critical importance appears from what was said in the decision on appeal by Maguire CJ, at p.533
Having regard to the questions before this House in Government of India v Taylor [1955] AC 491 I consider that it cannot be said that any approval was given by the House to the decision in the Buchanan case except to the extent that it held that there is a rule of law which precludes a state from suing in another state for taxes due under the law of the first state. No countenance was given in Government of India v Taylor , in Rossano’s case [1963] 2 QB 352 nor in Brokaw v Seatrain UK Ltd. [1971] 2 QB 476 to the suggestion that an action in this country could be properly described as the indirect enforcement of a penal or revenue law in another country when no claim under that law remained unsatisfied. The existence of such unsatisfied claim to the satisfaction of which the proceeds of the action will be applied appears to me to be an essential feature of the principle enunciated in the Buchanan case [1955] AC 516 for refusing to allow the action to succeed.’
Lord Templeman said: ‘This rule with regard to revenue laws may in the future be modified by international convention or by the laws of the European Economic Community in order to prevent fraudulent practices which damage all States and benefit no State. But at present the international law with regard to the non-enforcement of revenue and penal laws is absolute.’
Lord Templeman said that the striking out of a pleading was discretionary, and: ‘if an application to strike out involves a prolonged and serious argument, the judge should, as a general rule, decline to proceed with the argument unless he not only harbours doubts about the soundness of a pleading but, in addition, is satisfied that striking out will obviate the necessity for a trial, or will substantially reduce the burden of preparing for a trial, or the burden of the trial itself.’

Judges:

Lord Mackay of Clashfern, Lord Templeman

Citations:

[1986] AC 368, [1986] 1 All ER 129, [1986] 2 WLR 24

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Citing:

Cited – Peter Buchanan Limited and Macharg v McVey 1954
(Supreme Court of Ireland) The plaintiff was a company registered in Scotland put into compulsory liquidation by the revenue under a substantial claim for excess profits tax and income tax. The liquidator was really a nominee of the revenue. The . .
Cited – Government of India v Taylor HL 1955
The Government of India sought to prove in the voluntary liquidation of a company registered in the United Kingdom but trading in India for a sum due in respect of Indian income tax, including capital gains tax, which arose on the sale of the . .

Cited by:

Cited – QRS 1 APS and others v Frandsen CA 21-May-1999
The appellants were all Danish companies put into liquidation for asset stripping in contravention of Danish law. The respondent was resident in the UK and had owned them. The Danish tax authorities issued tax demands and the liquidators now sought . .
Cited – Mbasogo, President of the State of Equatorial Guinea and Another v Logo Ltd and others CA 23-Oct-2006
Foreign Public Law Not Enforceable Here
The claimant alleged a conspiracy by the defendants for his overthrow by means of a private coup d’etat. The defendants denied that the court had jurisdiction. The claimants appealed dismissal of their claim to damages.
Held: The claims were . .
Cited – Belhaj and Another v Straw and Others SC 17-Jan-2017
The claimant alleged complicity by the defendant, (now former) Foreign Secretary, in his mistreatment by the US while held in Libya. He also alleged involvement in his unlawful abduction and removal to Libya, from which had had fled for political . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Taxes Management, International, Litigation Practice

Updated: 19 May 2022; Ref: scu.225458

Petch v Gurney (Inspector of Taxes): CA 8 Jun 1994

The thirty day time limit for the forwarding of a case stated is mandatory. The Court of Appeal has no discretion to extend the time limit. Millett LJ analysed the position by reference to the traditional dichotomy of directory or mandatory provisions, saying: ‘The question whether strict compliance with a statutory requirement is necessary has arisen again and again in the cases. The question is not whether the requirement should be complied with; of course it should: the question is what consequences should attend a failure to comply. The difficulty arises from the common practice of the legislature of stating that something ‘shall’ be done (which means that it ‘must’ be done) without stating what are to be the consequences if it is not done. The Court has dealt with the problem by devising a distinction between those requirements which are said to be ‘mandatory’ (or ‘imperative’ or ‘obligatory’) and those which are said to be merely ‘directory’ (a curious use of the word which in this context is taken as equivalent to ‘permissive’). Where the requirement is mandatory, it must be strictly complied with; failure to comply invalidates everything that follows. Where it is merely directory, it should still be complied with, and there may be sanctions for disobedience; but failure to comply does not invalidate what follows.’ and ‘The taxpayer’s argument, therefore, comes to this: that the requirement that the Case Stated be transmitted to the High Court is mandatory; but the requirement that this be done within thirty days is not. This is not an easy proposition to accept. Where statute requires an act to be done in a particular manner, it may be possible to regard the requirement that the act be done as mandatory but the requirement that it be done in a particular manner as merely directory. In such a case the statutory requirement can be treated as substantially complied with if the act is done in a manner which is not less satisfactory having regard to the purpose of the legislature in imposing the requirement. But that is not the case with a stipulation as to time. If the only time limit which is prescribed is not obligatory, there is no time limit at all. Doing an act late is not the equivalent of doing it in time . . This probably cannot be laid down as a universal rule, but in my judgment it must be the normal one. Unless the Court is given a power to extend the time, or some other and final mandatory time limit can be spelled out of the statute, a time limit cannot be relaxed without being dispensed with altogether; and it cannot be dispensed with altogether unless the substantive requirement itself can be dispensed with.’

Citations:

Ind Summary 11-Jul-1994, Gazette 13-Jul-1994, Times 08-Jun-1994, [1994] 3 All ER 731, [1994] EWCA Civ 27, [1994] STC 689

Links:

Bailii

Statutes:

Taxes Management Act 1970 56(4)

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Cited by:

Cited – 7 Strathay Gardens Ltd v Pointstar Shipping and Finance Ltd and Another CA 15-Dec-2004
The tenants served a notice on the landlord to enfanchise their properties. The landlord’s counter-notice failed to state whether any estate management scheme existed. The tenants said the counter-notice was invalid.
Held: The landlord’s . .
Cited – JJB Sports Plc, Regina (On the Application of) v Telford and Wrekin Borough Council Admn 5-Nov-2008
The authority’s demand notice was served later than was practicable. The company now appealed against a liability order.
Held: The ratepayer’s appeal by way of Case Stated was dismissed. ‘demand notices must be served by the relevant authority . .
Cited – Matheson v Mazars Solutions Ltd EAT 16-Dec-2003
EAT Practice and Procedure – Application. The application had been presented timeously at the ET in Edinburgh, but was out of time when retransmitted to Glasgow. The tribunal had found the Edinburgh office to be . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Income Tax, Litigation Practice, Taxes Management

Updated: 19 May 2022; Ref: scu.84684

DTE Financial Services Ltd v Wilson (Inspector of Taxes): CA 24 May 2001

A scheme by which an employer paid bonuses to senior staff by purchasing contingent reversionary interests in an overseas trust, and then assigning them to the staff without admitting liability for income tax or national insurance contributions when the interests fell into possession. The scheme failed under anti-avoidance provisions under Ramsay principles. The cash payment received was a payment of assessable income under section 203(1) and consideration of later sections was unnecessary.

Citations:

Times 03-May-2001, Gazette 24-May-2001, [2001] EWCA Civ 455

Links:

Bailii

Statutes:

Income and Corporation Taxes Act 1988 203(1) 203B 203F

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Citing:

Cited – W T Ramsay Ltd v Inland Revenue Commissioners HL 12-Mar-1981
The taxpayers used schemes to create allowable losses, and now appealed assessment to tax. The schemes involved a series of transactions none of which were a sham, but which had the effect of cancelling each other out.
Held: If the true nature . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Taxes Management, Income Tax

Updated: 19 May 2022; Ref: scu.80145

Carstairs (Inspector of Taxes) v Sykes: ChD 20 Dec 2000

The taxpayer had claimed tax relief for certain periods (approximately six years) when he was living abroad. The Crown appealed a decision of the commissioners discharging their assessment to tax.
Held: There is a distinction in law between the residence abroad and absence for the purposes of tax relief. The taxpayer can be resident, but absent abroad. For the purposes of the provisions of schedule E tax deductions on foreign earnings, the taxpayer should not be free to include periods when he was neither resident, nor ordinarily resident, when aggregating the qualifying period of absence. Whether someone was at any particular moment absent from the UK could only be answered in the context of the question. In this context that, must require the court to give to meaning of a qualifying period absence in the sense of not being physically present in the place of residence.

Judges:

Hart J

Citations:

Times 20-Dec-2000

Statutes:

Income and Corporation Taxes Act 1988 193(1) Sch E

Income Tax, Taxes Management

Updated: 19 May 2022; Ref: scu.78919

Alimadadian v Revenue and Customs: FTTTx 27 Jun 2014

FTTTx Appeal against Taxpayer Information Notice – Claim of Legal Professional Privilege – Appeal withdrawn by Appellant prior to hearing – HMRC application for costs under rule 10(1)(b) – was Appellant’s bringing and conduct of proceedings unreasonable – yes – making of order for costs deferred so as to consider Appellant’s means under rule 10(5)(b)

Judges:

Alison McKenna TJ

Citations:

[2014] UKFTT 641 (TC)

Links:

Bailii

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Taxes Management

Updated: 19 May 2022; Ref: scu.533687

Amper Clearflow Ltd v Revenue and Customs: FTTTx 30 Sep 2013

FTTTx PAYE – late submission of Employer’s Annual Return – whether scale of penalty is reasonable , and whether penalty is unfair and should be reduced – Decision of Upper Tribunal in Hok Ltd applies. Whether reasonable excuse for late submission of return – No.

Citations:

[2013] UKFTT 541 (TC)

Links:

Bailii

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Taxes Management

Updated: 19 May 2022; Ref: scu.516870

Ingenious Media Holdings Plc and Another, Regina (on The Application of) v Revenue and Customs: SC 19 Oct 2016

The tax payer complained that the Permanent Secretary for Tax had, in an off the record briefing disclosed tax details regarding a film investment scheme. Despite the off the record basis, details were published in a newspaper. His claims had been rejected at first instance and at the court of appeal.
Held: The taxpayer’s appeal succeeded. The approach should have been within the law of confidence. The information provided was confidential. The schemes at issue were of the past, and disclosure could not assist their prevention, and ‘a general desire to foster good relations with the media or to publicise HMRC’s views about elaborate tax avoidance schemes cannot possibly justify a senior or any other official of HMRC discussing the affairs of individual tax payers with journalists.’
‘ It is a cardinal error to suppose that the public law remedies and principles associated with judicial review of the exercise of administrative power, developed by the common law from the ancient prerogative writs, occupy the entire field whenever the party whose conduct is under challenge holds a public position. It is important to emphasise that public bodies are not immune from the ordinary application of the common law, including in this case the law of confidentiality. The common law is multi-faceted and remains the bedrock of the English legal system.’

Judges:

Lady Hale, Deputy President, Lord Mance, Lord Kerr, Lord Reed, Lord Toulson

Citations:

[2016] UKSC 54, [2017] 1 All ER 95, [2016] BTC 41, [2016] WLR(D) 540, [2016] STC 2306, [2016] 1 WLR 4164, [2016] STI 2746, UKSC 2015/0082

Links:

Bailii, Bailii Summary, WLRD, SC, SC Summary

Statutes:

Commissioners for Revenue and Customs Act 2005 18

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Citing:

At CA – Ingenious Media Holdings Plc and Another, Regina (on The Application of) v Revenue and Customs CA 4-Mar-2015
The claimant sought judicial review of the disclosure, off the record by an officer of the defendant to a journalist, of confidential materials as to their investigation of his involvement in a film investment scheme. The claim had been rejected by . .
Cited – Regina v Inland Revenue Commissioners, ex parte the National Federation of Self-Employed and Small Businesses Ltd HL 9-Apr-1981
Limitations on HMRC discretion on investigation
The Commissioners had been concerned at tax evasion of up to 1 million pounds a year by casual workers employed in Fleet Street. They agreed with the employers and unions to collect tax in the future, but that they would not pursue those who had . .
Cited – Regina v Inland Revenue Commission ex parte Preston; In re Preston HL 1984
Duty of Fairness to taxpayer – Written Assurance
The applicant was assured by the Inland Revenue that it would not raise further inquiries on certain tax affairs if he agreed to forgo interest relief which he had claimed and to pay a certain sum in capital gains tax.
Held: Where the . .
Cited – Marcel v Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis CA 1992
A writ of subpoena ad duces tecum had been issued requiring the production by the police for use in civil proceedings of documents seized during a criminal fraud investigation. The victim of the fraud needed them to pursue his own civil case.
Cited – Re Arrows Ltd No 4 HL 1995
The Court of Appeal had allowed an appeal from the judge who had directed that the transcripts of examinations of a director of an insolvent company under section 236 on the Director of the Serious Fraud Office undertaking that the transcripts would . .
Ar First Instance – Ingenious Media Holdings Plc and Another, Regina (on The Application of) v HM Revenue and Customs Admn 25-Oct-2013
Application for judicial review of a decision of the Defendants acting by one of their most senior officials to disclose information relating to the claimants in an ‘off the record’ briefing with two journalists.
Held: The request for judicial . .
Cited – W v Egdell CA 1990
The plaintiff was detained in a secure mental hospital, under a hospital order coupled with a restriction order, after pleading guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility. The defendant, a consultant psychiatrist, was engaged . .
Cited – Regina v Secretary of State for The Home Department Ex Parte Simms HL 8-Jul-1999
Ban on Prisoners talking to Journalists unlawful
The two prisoners, serving life sentences for murder, had had their appeals rejected. They continued to protest innocence, and sought to bring their campaigns to public attention through the press, having oral interviews with journalists without . .
Cited – McKennitt and others v Ash and Another QBD 21-Dec-2005
The claimant sought to restrain publication by the defendant of a book recounting very personal events in her life. She claimed privacy and a right of confidence. The defendant argued that there was a public interest in the disclosures.
Held: . .
Cited – The Public Law Project, Regina (on The Application of) v Lord Chancellor SC 13-Jul-2016
Proposed changes to the Legal Aid regulations were challenged as being invalid, for being discriminatory. If regulations are not authorised under statute, they will be invalid, even if they have been approved by resolutions of both Houses under the . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Taxes Management, Information, Intellectual Property, Taxes Management, Judicial Review

Updated: 18 May 2022; Ref: scu.570160

Prudential Plc and Another, Regina (on The Application of) v Special Commissioner of Income Tax and Another: SC 23 Jan 2013

The appellants resisted disclosure to the revenue of advice it had received. It claimed legal advice privilege (LAP), though the advice was from its accountants.
Held: (Lords Sumption and Clarke dissenting) LAP applies to all communications passing between a client and its lawyers, acting in their professional capacity, in connection with the provision of legal advice. However that privilege extended only to advice by professional or qualified lawyers. Amongst other things, beyond the case law, this was demonstrated by a rejection of a proposal for it to be extended to accountants, and acceptance of its extension to patent agents, and other statutory distinctions.
Whilst there may be a logic in extending the privilege, a decision must come from Parliament.
Lord Sumption dissented saying: ‘the law is that legal professional privilege attaches to any communication between a client and his legal adviser which is made (i) for the purpose of enabling the adviser to give or the client to receive legal advice, (ii) in the course of a professional relationship, and (iii) in the exercise by the adviser of a profession which has as an ordinary part of its function the giving of skilled legal advice on the subject in question. The privilege is a substantive right of the client, whose availability depends on the character of the advice which he is seeking and the circumstances in which it is given. It does not depend on the adviser’s status, provided that the advice is given in a professional context. It follows, on the uncontested evidence before us, that advice on tax law from a chartered accountant will attract the privilege in circumstances where it would have done so had it been given by a barrister or a solicitor. They are performing the same function, to which the same legal incidents attach.’
Lord Clarke said: ‘Legal advice privilege is a creature of the common law. As such it should be capable of redefinition to cater for changed conditions. If principle requires that it should apply to situations to which it was previously thought not to apply, I can see no reason why this court should not so state, unless prevented from doing so, either expressly or necessary implication, by statute.’

Judges:

Lord Neuberger, President, Lord Hope, Deputy President, Lord Walker, Lord Mance, Lord Clarke, Lord Sumption, Lord Reed

Citations:

[2013] WLR(D) 20, [2013] UKSC 1, UKSC 2010/0215

Links:

Bailii, Bailii Summary, SC Summary, SC

Statutes:

Taxes Management Act 1970 20(1)(a), Trade Mark Act 1994 87, Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 280

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Citing:

At First Instance – Prudential Plc and Another, Regina (on the Application of) v Special Commissioner of Income Tax and Another Admn 14-Oct-2009
The company had obtained legal advice but had taken it from their accountants. The Revenue sought its disclosure, and the company said that as legal advice it was protected by legal professional privilege.
Held: The material was not protected. . .
Appeal from – Prudential Plc and Another, Regina (on The Application of) v Special Commissioner of Income Tax and Others CA 13-Oct-2010
The court was asked whether advice given by an accountant could be protected against disclosure by legal professional privilege. The company had taken advice from its accountants, and objected to disclosure of that advice to the tax authorities . .
Cited – Regina v Special Commissioner And Another, ex parte Morgan Grenfell and Co Ltd HL 16-May-2002
The inspector issued a notice requiring production of certain documents. The respondents refused to produce them, saying that they were protected by legal professional privilege.
Held: Legal professional privilege is a fundamental part of . .
Cited – Berd v Lovelace 1576
A solicitor served with process to testify, ordered not to be examined. Thomas Hawtry, gentleman was served with a subpoena to testify his knowledge touching the cause in variance ; and made oath that he hath been, and yet is a solicitor in this . .
Cited – Greenough v Gaskell 17-Jan-1833
On a bill which sought to charge a solicitor with a fraud practised on the Plaintiffs in the course of proceedings on his client’s behalf, the Court refused to order the production of entries and memorandums contained in the Defendant’s books, or of . .
Cited – Upjohn Company v United States 13-Jan-1981
Worldlii United States Supreme Court – When the General Counsel for petitioner pharmaceutical manufacturing corporation (hereafter petitioner) was informed that one of its foreign subsidiaries had made . .
Cited – Regina v Derby Magistrates Court Ex Parte B HL 19-Oct-1995
No Breach of Solicitor Client Confidence Allowed
B was charged with the murder of a young girl. He made a confession to the police, but later changed his story, saying his stepfather had killed the girl. He was acquitted. The stepfather was then charged with the murder. At his committal for trial, . .
Cited – Three Rivers District Council and others v Governor and Company of the Bank of England (No 6) HL 11-Nov-2004
The Bank anticipated criticism in an ad hoc enquiry which was called to investigate its handling of a matter involving the claimant. The claimant sought disclosure of the documents created when the solicitors advised employees of the Bank in . .
Cited – Slade v Tucker CA 1880
Sir George Jessel MR said that legal advice privilege is to be ‘confined to communications between a client and his legal adviser, that is, between solicitor and client or barrister and client.’ . .
Cited – Wheeler v Le Marchant CA 1881
Advice was given to the defendant trustee of the will of a Mr Brett in the course of its administration in the Chancery Division; for the purpose of that advice information was sought from both the former and the current estate-agent and surveyor. . .
Cited – Minter v Priest HL 1930
The House was asked whether a conversation between a person seeking the services of a solicitor in relation to the purchase of real property and the solicitor was privileged in circumstances where the solicitor was being requested to lend the . .
Cited – Attorney-General v Mulholland CA 1963
The court rejected a claim for protection from disclosure of matters passing between journalists and their sources: ‘it is said that however these questions were and however proper to be answered for the purpose of this inquiry, a journalist has a . .
Cited – D v National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children HL 2-Feb-1977
Immunity from disclosure of their identity should be given to those who gave information about neglect or ill treatment of children to a local authority or the NSPCC similar to that which the law allowed to police informers.
Lord Simon of . .
Cited – Dormeuil Trade Mark ChD 1983
Parties had together applied to register a trade mark. Later one applied and the other opposed, and application. At various times they had been represented by trade mark agents and solicitors. Protection against discovery was now sought as to . .
Cited – Lawrence v Campbell 1859
Legal privilege was claimed in English litigation for communications between a Scottish client and a Scottish solicitor practising in London.
Held: ‘the same principle that would justify an Englishman consulting his English solicitor would . .
Cited – Macfarlan v Rolt 1872
Communications between a client and his foreign lawyers were treated as being entitled as a matter of course to the same legal advice privilege as communications with English lawyers in like circumstances. . .
Cited – Wilden Pump Engineering Co v Fusfeld CA 1985
The 1977 Act conferred privilege on any communication involving patent attorneys made for the purpose of proceedings before the Comptroller of Patents or the Patents Appeal Tribunal. The defendants claimed privilege for all communications with their . .
Cited – New Victoria Hospital v Ryan EAT 3-Feb-1993
Privilege from disclosure is only to attach to ‘qualified legal advisers’.
Tucker J referred in an obiter passage to advisers ‘such as solicitors or counsel’, and thus it was said that he was not seeking to limit legal professional privilege . .
Cited – In re Duncan, decd, Garfield v Fay 1968
Ormrod J rejected a submission that where foreign lawyers are involved no privilege is recognised by an English Court if privilege is not recognised by the municipal law of the forum of the foreign lawyer. He said: ‘The basis of the privilege is . .
Cited – Great Atlantic Insurance v Home Insurance CA 1981
The defendants sought to enter into evidence one part of a document, but the plaintiffs sought to have the remainder protected through legal professional privilege.
Held: The entirety of the document was privileged, but by disclosing part, the . .
Cited – Creditors of Wamphray v Lady Wamphray 1675
An advocate was not bound to disclose ‘any private advice or secret of his calling or employment’ . .
Cited – Dorset Yacht Co Ltd v Home Office HL 6-May-1970
A yacht was damaged by boys who had escaped from the supervision of prison officers in a nearby Borstal institution. The boat owners sued the Home Office alleging negligence by the prison officers.
Held: Any duty of a borstal officer to use . .
Cited – AM and S Europe Ltd v Commission of The European Communities ECJ 4-Feb-1981
Sir Gordon Slynn AG discussed legal advce priviege: ‘Whether it is described as the right of the client or the duty of the lawyer, this principle has nothing to do with the protection or privilege of the lawyer. It springs essentially from the basic . .
Cited – Van Der Mussele v Belgium ECHR 23-Nov-1983
There is discrimination only if the cases under comparison are not sufficiently different to justify the difference in treatment. This expressed by saying that the two cases must be in an ‘analogous situation’. The social security system is a . .
Cited – Campbell v The United Kingdom ECHR 25-Mar-1992
The applicant complained about the compatibility with the European Convention of the Prisons rule 74(4) which provided that ‘every letter to or from a prisoner shall be read by the Governor . . and it shall be within the discretion of the Governor . .
Cited – Regina v Secretary of State for The Home Department Ex Parte Simms HL 8-Jul-1999
Ban on Prisoners talking to Journalists unlawful
The two prisoners, serving life sentences for murder, had had their appeals rejected. They continued to protest innocence, and sought to bring their campaigns to public attention through the press, having oral interviews with journalists without . .
Cited – Dennis v Codrington 1579
A counsellor not to be examined of any matter, wherein he hath been of couunsel.- The plaintant seeks to have Master Oldsworth examined touching a matter in variance, wherein he hath been of counsel ; it is ordered he shall not be compelled by . .
Cited – Calley v Richards CA 8-Jul-1854
Communications between a person and his legal adviser, who had been a solicitor, but at the time of the communications had, without his knowledge ceased to practise, are privileged. The communication had reference to the validity of a will, and . .
Cited – McLeod v McLeod 1744
. .
Cited – Moseley v The Victoria Rubber Co ChD 1886
There is no general professional privilege covering communications between a person and his patent agent. Communications between a client and his solicitor who was also the client’s patent attorney were not privileged if the solicitor received them . .
Cited – Marcic v Thames Water Utilities Limited HL 4-Dec-2003
The claimant’s house was regularly flooded by waters including also foul sewage from the respondent’s neighbouring premises. He sought damages and an injunction. The defendants sought to restrict the claimant to his statutory rights.
Held: The . .
Cited – Johnson v Unisys Ltd HL 23-Mar-2001
The claimant contended for a common law remedy covering the same ground as the statutory right available to him under the Employment Rights Act 1996 through the Employment Tribunal system.
Held: The statutory system for compensation for unfair . .
Cited – Woolwich Equitable Building Society v Inland Revenue Commissioners (2) HL 20-Jul-1992
The society had set out to assert that regulations were unlawful in creating a double taxation. It paid money on account of the tax demanded. It won and recovered the sums paid, but the revenue refused to pay any interest accrued on the sums paid. . .
Cited – Birmingham Corporation v West Midlands Baptist (Trust) Association Inc HL 1969
There had been a substantial delay of many years after the order for compulsory purchase was made, with a substantial increase in value after the service of the notice to treat.
Held: The physical condition of the reference land and its . .
Cited – Parry-Jones v The Law Society CA 1969
The Society had, for regulatory purposes, exercised a power under the 1957 Act to call upon the plaintiff, a solicitor, to produce for inspection accounts and other information relating to the conduct of his clients’ affairs. He sought an injunction . .
Cited – Alfred Crompton Amusement Machines Ltd v Customs and Excise Commissioners CA 1972
Legal advice given by employed lawyers to their employers, rather than lawyers in independent practice may be privileged before a tax tribunal.
Lord Denning MR justified the result primarily on the ground that, although the communications of a . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Legal Professions, Taxes Management

Updated: 18 May 2022; Ref: scu.470523

Lam v Inland Revenue Commissioners: 2006

Citations:

[2006] STC 893

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Cited by:

Cited – Stockler v HM Revenue and Customs ChD 22-Sep-2009
The taxpayer appealed against a decision confirming the Commissioners’ power to impose a penalty on him. It was said that his solicitors’ firm had negligently understated its profits. A settlement was proposed allowing a withdrawal of the return, . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Taxes Management

Updated: 18 May 2022; Ref: scu.375142

Regina v Inland Revenue Commissioners, ex parte MFK Underwriting Agents Ltd: 1989

The taxpayer complained of a change in Inland Revenue practice which, it said, went against a legitimate expectation created by the scheme.
Held: Judge J said: ‘There is a detailed procedure for resolving disputes between the Inland Revenue and the taxpayer and if necessary for bringing such disputes to the courts for decision. In addition, however, as the Inland Revenue is an ‘administrative body with statutory duties’ (per Lord Wilberforce in Regina v Commissioners of Inland Revenue ex parte National Federation of Self Employed at page 632) it is not immune from an order for judicial review. Since the decision in the House of Lords in Regina v Commissioners of Inland Revenue ex parte Preston [1985] AC 835 the principle has been established that acts which are an abuse of the Inland Revenue’s powers or acts done outside those powers may be subject to judicial review.
Abuse of power may take the form of unfairness. This is not mere ‘unfairness’ in the general sense. Even if ‘unfair’, efficient performance of the statutory obligations imposed on the Inland Revenue will not, of itself, amount to an abuse of power’

Judges:

Judge J

Citations:

The Times, 17 July 1989

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Cited by:

Appeal from – Regina v Inland Revenue Commissioners, ex parte MFK Underwriting Agents Ltd CA 1990
Legitimate Expectation once created not withdrawn
The claimant said that a change of practice by the Revenue was contrary to a legitimate expectation.
Held: The Inland Revenue could not withdraw from a representation if it would cause: substantial unfairness to the applicant; if the . .
Cited – Wheeler, Regina (on the Application of) v Office of the Prime Minister and Another Admn 2-May-2008
The applicant sought leave to bring judicial review of the prime minister’s decsion not to hold a referendum on the ratification of the treaty of Lisbon.
Held: The claimant had arguable points under the 2000 Act and otherwise, and permission . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Taxes Management, Natural Justice

Updated: 18 May 2022; Ref: scu.277174

Inland Revenue Commissioners v Goldblatt: 1972

In a winding up case, the Commissioners can if necessary proceed against a receiver for misfeasance.

Citations:

[1972] Ch 498

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Cited by:

Cited – Total Network Sl v Revenue and Customs HL 12-Mar-2008
The House was asked whether an action for unlawful means conspiracy was available against a participant in a missing trader intra-community, or carousel, fraud. The company appealed a finding of liability saying that the VAT Act and Regulations . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Taxes Management, Insolvency, Torts – Other

Updated: 18 May 2022; Ref: scu.268780

Lynn v Nathanson: 1931

(Nova Scotia Court of Appeal) A government theatre tax had to be paid by patrons who bought two tickets, one for the theatre and one for the tax. The tax was held to be outside the phrase in the lease which recovered rent on ‘gross receipts obtained in the theatre ‘ which phrase was to be construed in context.

Citations:

[1931] 2 DLR 457

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Cited by:

Cited – Debenhams Retail Plc and Another v Sun Alliance and London Assurance Company Ltd CA 20-Jul-2005
The landlord appealed against a decision that VAT was not to be included when calculating a rent based upon the turnover in the premises, when it had been expressed to include purchase taxes.
Held: The appeal succeeded: ‘it would be wrong to . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Commonwealth, Taxes Management, Landlord and Tenant

Updated: 17 May 2022; Ref: scu.228928

Bi-Flex Caribbean Ltd v Board of Inland Revenue: PC 1990

The general burden falls upon a tax payer to provide the information to allow a tax assessment to be made: ‘The element of guess-work and the almost unavoidable inaccuracy in a properly made best of judgment assessment, as the cases have established, do not serve to displace the validity of the assessments, which are prima facie right and remain right until the taxpayer shows that they are wrong and also shows positively what corrections should be made in order to make the assessments right or more nearly right. It is also relevant, when considering the sufficiency of evidence to displace an assessment, to remember that the facts are peculiarly within the knowledge of the taxpayer.’

Judges:

Lord Lowry

Citations:

(1990) 63 TC 515

Jurisdiction:

Commonwealth

Citing:

Cited – Trautwein v Federal Commissioner of Taxation 9-Sep-1936
(High Court of Australia) Latham CJ considered how the Inland Revenue might make an assessment of a taxpayer’s income and said: ‘In the absence of some record in the mind or in the books of the taxpayer, it would often be quite impossible to make a . .

Cited by:

Cited – Pegasus Birds Ltd v Commissioners of HM Customs and Excise CA 27-Jul-2004
The taxpayer complained that the assessment imposed by the Commissioners was wholly unreasonable, and void. The tribunal had found the assessment wholly unreasonable, but the High Court had allowed the Commissioners’ appeal.
Held: There was no . .
Cited – Momin and others v HM Revenue and Customs ChD 15-Jun-2007
The appellants challenged an assessment to income tax, saying that they had not been supported by a bona fide discovery of any loss of tax, and was otherwise unsupported by evidence.
Held: ‘The appellants have over a period of many years . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Taxes Management

Updated: 16 May 2022; Ref: scu.200235

Ransom v Higgs: 1973

Judges:

Megarry J

Citations:

[1974] 50 Tax Cas 1, [1973] I WLR 1187

Cited by:

Cited – Paul Alexander Clark (Her Majesty’s Inspector of Taxes) v The Trustees of The British Telecom Pension Scheme and Others ChD 14-Oct-1998
The question was whether sub-underwriting commissions received by the Trustees are chargeable to tax under Case I of Schedule D and whether they are also liable to the additional rate of tax applicable to trusts. The investment managers appointed to . .
At First Instance – Ransom (Inspector of Taxes) v Higgs, etc HL 13-Nov-1974
A company had devised two elaborate schemes with a view to avoiding income tax. Lord Wilberforce discussed the definition of ‘trade’: ‘`Trade’ cannot be precisely defined, but certain characteristics can be identified which trade normally has. . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Taxes Management

Updated: 16 May 2022; Ref: scu.183489

Lewis v Revenue and Customs: FTTTx 29 Nov 2013

FTTTx LEGAL PROFESSIONAL PRIVILEGE – information notice – communications between parties in attempt to compromise settle claims between employee and employer – whether privileged from production to Respondents in separate proceedings – litigation privilege – common interest privilege – appeal dismissed

Citations:

[2013] UKFTT 722 (TC)

Links:

Bailii

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Taxes Management

Updated: 16 May 2022; Ref: scu.519610

Herne Bay Catholic Social Club v Revenue and Customs: FTTTx 28 Nov 2013

FTTTx LATE APPEAL-application to appeal VAT default surcharges between 2 and 25 years out of time – no real explanation for lateness and grounds of appeal having no reasonable prospect of success – application refused and appeals struck out

Citations:

[2013] UKFTT 718 (TC)

Links:

Bailii

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Taxes Management

Updated: 16 May 2022; Ref: scu.519604

Inland Revenue Commissioners v Nuttall: CA 1990

The Revenue and the taxpayer had agreed that the latter should pay andpound;15,000 in consideration of the Revenue taking no proceedings against him for tax penalties or interest. The taxpayer paid only andpound;5,000 and the Revenue sought summary judgment for the rest. The taxpayer, who claimed that the agreement made was ultra vires the Revenue, was granted leave to defend by the Master, a decision upheld by French J. The Revenue appealed to the Court of Appeal. The appeal succeeded, and summary judgment was given for the sum which the Revenue had claimed.
After citing IRC v NFSESB, Parker LJ said: ‘If it is right that the Board had power to enter into a bargain involving the ‘amnesty’ with regard to past tax, it appears to me to follow that they must also have power, had they wanted to, to make a bargain whereby some sum would have been paid in respect of that past tax.’ and
‘Although, as we have noted, the Taxes Acts offence code provides for the imposition of penalties exclusively as a judicial act whether by the Appeal Commissioners or the court, in practice most of the money collected in respect of penalties and default interest is paid without being imposed or charged formally. The record shows that over the past seven calendar years formal awards of penalties in respect of major offences have averaged just seven cases a year. What happens in practice is that taxpayers who have, in the opinion of the Board’s officers, rendered themselves liable to the imposition of interest and penalties are invited to make a settlement. The procedure is that the taxpayer makes a voluntary offer to pay a sum of money in consideration of the Board agreeing not to take formal proceedings for any tax underpaid and the interest and penalties. If such an offer is made and is accepted, a contract binding upon both the Inland Revenue and the taxpayer is brought into being.’
As to Cockerline, he said: ‘But it appears to me that if the Revenue are to have the necessary powers, as they are under s 1 of the 1890 Act, it is an incidental power to enable them to enter into an agreement to compromise an overall situation consisting partly in outstanding tax, partly in a potential liability to culpable interest and partly in potential liability to pay penalties if by that means they consider they can best recover and manage the tax which is committed to their care.
I would accordingly and for those reasons allow this appeal.’
Ralph Gibson LJ said of the taxpayer’s argument: ‘It was, I think, more than 60 years too late. It is not open to this court, having regard to the long established practice of the Revenue, and to the legislative history, to say now that the commissioners do not have the lawful power which they exercised by making this agreement with the taxpayer.’
Bingham LJ said: ‘It would seem to me extraordinary, and also regrettable, if the Revenue could not achieve by agreement that which it could undoubtedly achieve by coercion. The submission that it could not, as counsel for the taxpayer acknowledges, runs counter to the habitual practice of the Revenue recognised by the recent Royal Commission without query or criticism. But counsel fairly points to the fact that although the legislation expressly authorises the Revenue to mitigate and compound claims for penalties and default interest, it does not expressly authorise the Revenue to compromise claims for back duty save where an assessment has been made and appealed against.
I would prefer, if necessary, to accept this legislative omission as an anomaly of drafting than be compelled to a result I regard as offensive to good sense and subversive of the beneficial present practice. But there is, I think, no anomaly. The power to make agreements with taxpayers for the payment of back duty, even in the absence of assessment and appeal, is in my view a power necessary for carrying into execution the legislation relating to Revenue within the meaning of s 1 of the 1890 Act. It is, of course, a power to be exercised with circumspection and due regard to the Revenue’s statutory duty to collect the public revenue. But if in an appropriate case the Revenue reasonably considers that the public interest in collecting taxes will be better served by informal compromise with the taxpayer than by exercising the full rigour of its coercive powers, such compromise seems to me to fall well within the wide managerial discretion of the body to whose care and management the collection of tax is committed. Such informal compromise deprives the taxpayer of the locus poenitentiae provided by s 54(2), and the right to re-open assessments under s 33, but it protects him against exercise of the Revenue’s more draconian enforcement powers (eg under ss 61 and 65) and often, as here, against further liability for penalties and default interest. I have no hesitation in holding such an agreement, properly made, to be binding. There is accordingly, in my opinion, no arguable defence to the present claim.

I would reach this conclusion even if the matter were entirely free from decided authority. But it seems to me that Rowlatt J in A-G v Johnstone (1926) 10 TC 758 did sanction enforcement of an agreement which related to arrears of tax as well as penalties. In W H Cockerline and Co v IRC (1930) 16 TC 1 the Court of Appeal was not concerned with enforcement of a back duty agreement but did, as I read the judgments, uphold the validity of an agreement made in the absence of an assessment and acknowledge that a taxpayer could validly waive the requirements of at least some procedural provisions enacted for his protection. The Fleet Street Casuals’ case (see IRC v National Federation of Self-Employed and Small Businesses Ltd [1981] STC 260, [1982] AC 617) shows the breadth of the Revenue’s discretionary powers. I think these cases provide judicial sanction for a practice which Rowlatt J over 60 years ago described as long pursued, and which s 105 of the 1970 Act implicitly acknowledges.’

Judges:

Parker LJ, Ralph Gibson LJ, Bingham LJ

Citations:

[1990] STC 194

Citing:

Cited – Regina v Inland Revenue Commissioners, ex parte the National Federation of Self-Employed and Small Businesses Ltd HL 9-Apr-1981
Limitations on HMRC discretion on investigation
The Commissioners had been concerned at tax evasion of up to 1 million pounds a year by casual workers employed in Fleet Street. They agreed with the employers and unions to collect tax in the future, but that they would not pursue those who had . .
Cited – WH Cockerline and Co v Inland Revenue Commissioners 1930
Counsel had argued about the imposition of a penalty where no assessment had yet been made. Lord Hanworth MR said: ‘In language which was, perhaps, coloured by a warmth of feeling about it, he suggested that it was entirely wrong, and, indeed, made . .

Cited by:

Cited – Stockler v HM Revenue and Customs ChD 22-Sep-2009
The taxpayer appealed against a decision confirming the Commissioners’ power to impose a penalty on him. It was said that his solicitors’ firm had negligently understated its profits. A settlement was proposed allowing a withdrawal of the return, . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Taxes Management

Updated: 15 May 2022; Ref: scu.375137

Hoysted v Federal Taxation Commissioner: PC 1926

An implied decision of the High Court on the true construction of a will estopped the parties from contending for a different construction relating to a later year’s assessment.

Citations:

[1926] AC 155

Cited by:

Cited – Matalan Retail Ltd v Revenue and Customs ChD 5-Aug-2009
The taxpayer imported swimwear for sale. The respondent had incorrectly indicated that such swimwear had one classification. The claimant sought to prevent the respondent reclassifying the goods, saying that they had made given binding tariff . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Commonwealth, Taxes Management

Updated: 15 May 2022; Ref: scu.372322

Edwards (Inspector of Taxes) v Bairstow: HL 25 Jul 1955

The House was asked whether a particular transaction was ‘an adventure in the nature of trade’.
Held: Although the House accepted that this was ‘an inference of fact’, on the primary facts as found by the Commissioners ‘the true and only reasonable conclusion’ contradicted that decision.
The House set out principles for establishing that decisions of a commissioner were ones of law, and were reviewable by an appellate court. Whether facts as found or admitted fall on one side or the other of some conceptual line drawn by the law is a question of fact.
Lord Radcliffe said that ‘Perversity’ in a decision means that ‘the facts found are such that no person acting judicially and properly instructed as to the relevant law could have come to the determination under appeal. In those circumstances, too, the court must intervene. It has no option but to assume that there has been some misconception of the law and that this has been responsible for the determination.’
Viscount Simonds said: ‘For it is universally conceded that, although it is a pure finding of fact, it may be set aside on grounds which have been stated in various ways but are, I think, fairly summarized by saying that the court should take that course if it appears that the commissioners have acted without any evidence or upon a view of the facts which could not reasonably be entertained.’
Lord Radcliffe criticised the tendency of courts to treat questions as ‘pure questions of fact’, so as to exclude review: ‘As I see it, the reason why the courts do not interfere with the Commissioners’ findings or determinations when they really do involve nothing but questions of fact is not any supposed advantage in the Commissioners of greater experience in the matters of business or any other matters. The reason is simply that by the system that has been set up the Commissioners are the first tribunal to try an appeal, and in the interest of the efficient administration of justice their decisions can only be upset on appeal if they have been positively wrong in law. The Court is not a second opinion where there is a reasonable ground for the first. But there is no reason to make a mystery about the subjects that Commissioners deal with or to invite the courts to impose any exceptional restraint on themselves because they are dealing with cases that arise out of facts found by the Commissioners. Their duty is no more than to examine those facts with a decent respect for the tribunal appealed from and if they think that the only reasonable conclusion on the facts found is inconsistent with the determination come to, to say so without more ado.’ and ‘I do not think that it much matters whether this state of affairs is described as one in which there is no evidence to support the determination or as one in which the evidence is inconsistent with and contradictory of the determination, or as one in which the true and only reasonable conclusion contradicts the determination. Rightly understood, each phrase propounds the same test. For my part, I prefer the last of the three …’ As to the commissioners findings of fact: ‘Their duty is no more than to examine those facts with a decent respect for the tribunal appealed from and if they think that the only reasonable conclusion on the facts found is inconsistent with the determination come to, to say so without more ado.’
HL Income Tax, Schedule D-Purchase and sale of cotton spinning plant – Isolated transaction – Whether adventure in nature of trade.

Judges:

Lord Radcliffe, Viscount Simonds

Citations:

[1956] AC 14, [1955] 3 All ER 48, [1955] 36 Tax Cas 207, [1955] UKHL 3, [1955] UKHL TC – 36 – 207, 36 TC 207

Links:

Bailii, Bailii

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Cited by:

Cited – Rowland v Boyle (Inspector of Taxes) ChD 11-Apr-2003
An accountant was accused of having made fraudulent claims for interest relief. He appealed from the special commissioners.
Held: Where the taxpayer was a professional person of previous good character, the standard of proof required before a . .
Cited – Camas Plc v HM Inspector of Taxes ChD 7-Jul-2003
An investment company sought to set against its liability to corporation tax, the various costs of taking over another company. They argued that as an investment company these were not costs of the purchase and could be set against tax.
Held: . .
Cited – Moyna v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions HL 31-Jul-2003
The appellant had applied for and been refused disability living allowance on the basis of being able to carry out certain cooking tasks.
Held: The purpose of the ‘cooking test’ is not to ascertain whether the applicant can survive, or enjoy a . .
Cited – New Angel Court Ltd v Adam (Inspector of Taxes) ChD 25-Jul-2003
The taxpayer company employed a subsidiary company through which it conducted its trade in land. It then sought to represent the profits from that subsidiary within its own accounts as trading profits for corporation tax purposes. The commissioner . .
Cited – Biogen Plc v Medeva Plc HL 31-Oct-1996
The claim patented sought to protect a genetic molecule rather than a whole mouse namely that the molecule would, if inserted into a suitable host cell, cause the cell to make antigens of the Hepatitis B virus. A recombinant method of making the . .
Cited – Office of Fair Trading and others v IBA Health Limited CA 19-Feb-2004
The OFT had considered whether it was necessary to refer a merger between two companies to the Competition Commission, and decided against. The Competition Appeal Tribunal held that the proposed merger should have been referred. The OFT and parties . .
Cited – Clark v Oxfordshire Health Authority CA 18-Dec-1997
A nurse was employed under a contract, under which there was no mutuality of obligation; she could refuse work and employer need offer none. This meant that there was no employment capable of allowing an unfair dismissal issue to arise.
Sir . .
Cited – Regina v Medical Appeal Tribunal ex parte Gilmore; Re Gilmore’s Application CA 25-Feb-1957
The claimant had received two injuries resulting in his total blindness. He sought an order of certiorari against the respondent who had found only a 20% disability. The tribunal responded that its decision, under the Act was final.
Held: In . .
Cited – Arnold (Inspector of Taxes) v G Con Ltd ChD 4-Mar-2005
The revenue appealed against an order by the general commissioners to grant to the taxpayer, a construction industry subcontractor, a fresh exemption certficate where he had been consistently late in submitting tax and NI payments of several . .
Cited – Sony Computer Entertainment Europe Ltd v Customs and Excise ChD 27-Jul-2005
The appellants had imported Playstation computer games. They appealed refusal of a rebate of 50 million euros paid in VAT before a reclassification of the equipment so as to make it exempt from VAT.
Held: ‘The effect of the annulment of a . .
Cited – Templeton (Inspector of Taxes) v Transform Shop Office and Bar Fitters Ltd ChD 15-Jul-2005
The contractor had not met its liabilities to pay PAYE. The general commissioners had nevertheless granted a construction industry certificate under sections 561 and 565, having found an informal agreement to allow late payments.
Held: No tax . .
Cited – Wisdom v Chamberlain (Inspector of Taxes) CA 8-Nov-1968
The taxpayer, a comic actor, bought silver bullion hoping it would act as a hedge against a possible deflation of the pound. The revenue sought to tax his profits on sale under Schedule D. He argued that the money, being from one transaction, did . .
Cited – Matthews and others v Kent and Medway Towns and Fire Authority and others HL 1-Mar-2006
Retained or part-time firefighters sought parity of working conditions with full time firefighters.
Held: The retained firefighters’ appeal succeeded (Lords Carswell and Mance dissenting). The test was whether the part-time and full time . .
Cited – Yuen v The Royal Hong Kong Golf Club PC 28-Jul-1997
(Hong Kong) The applicant was dismissed as a golf caddie after nine years. The Club denied that he had ever been an employee. He was issued by the club with a number, a uniform and a locker. Caddying work was allocated to available caddies in strict . .
Cited – Lee Ting Sang v Chung Chi-Keung PC 8-Mar-1990
Deciding Whether person was an employee
(Hong Kong) The Board considered the conclusion that the applicant stone mason was not an employee of the defendant: ‘even if I leaned towards the opposite conclusion, it would nevertheless be quite impossible for me to say that no tribunal . .
Cited – Arnold (Inspector of Taxes) v G Con Ltd CA 12-May-2006
The tax payer company had failed to send in pay as you earn and NI returns for three years. The commissioners had found this to be only a minor failure and that the company was entitled to an exemption certificate under the construction industry . .
Cited – Regina v Monopolies and Mergers Commission, ex parte South Yorkshire Transport Ltd HL 1993
One bus company took over another, giving it an effective monopoly within the region. The Commission considered that the area involved was sufficiently substantial to cause concern that it may operate against the public interest. At first instance . .
Cited – H, Regina v (Interlocutory application: Disclosure) HL 28-Feb-2007
The trial judge had refused an order requested at a preparatory hearing by the defence for the disclosure of documents held by the prosecutor. The House was now asked whether a right of appeal existed against such a refusal.
Held: The practice . .
Cited – Gaines-Cooper v HM Revenue and Customs ChD 13-Nov-2007
The parties disputed the domicile of the tax-payer. He had a domicile of origin in the UK, but asserted that he had acquired a domicile of choice in the Seychelles. The Special Commissioners had allowed, in assessing the domicile at any time, of . .
Cited – HM Revenue and Customs v Weight Watchers (UK) Ltd ChD 21-Jan-2008
The court was asked whether the weight-watchers program which included attendance at a course and a supply of supporting materials was one single standard-rated supply or separate supplies of zero-rated printed materials and standard-rated support . .
Cited – McKnight (Inspector of Taxes) v Sheppard HL 18-Jun-1999
The taxpayer sought to set off against tax some pounds 200,000 spent defending professional disciplinary proceedings. The House was asked whether this was ‘money wholly and exclusively laid out or expended for the purposes of the trade.’
Held: . .
Cited – D’Souza v Director of Public Prosecutions HL 15-Oct-1992
The police went to detain the appellant under the 1983 Act. To do so they entered the property against her wishes. She resisted detention, and now appealed her conviction for assaulting the Police officers in the execution of their duty, saying that . .
Cited – Sugar v British Broadcasting Corporation and Another HL 11-Feb-2009
The Corporation had commissioned a report as to its coverage of Middle East issues. The claimant requested a copy, and the BBC refused saying that the report having been obtained for its own journalistic purposes, and that it was not covered by the . .
Cited – Gerrard v Staffordshire Potteries Ltd CA 2-Nov-1994
The plaintiff was injured when working for the defendants spraying glaze onto jars. A small foreign body was blown into her eye. She said that no eye protection had been suuplied as required by the regulations.
Held: The plaintiff’s appeal . .
Cited – Revenue and Customs v Smallwood and Another CA 8-Jul-2010
The taxpayers had set up trusts which they said were based in Mauritius allowing them to claim double taxation relief. The Revenue had issued closure notices, confirmed by the SPCT, but overturned by the High Court. The Revenue appealed, saying that . .
Cited – Regina (Holding and Barnes plc) v Secretary of State for Environment Transport and the Regions; Regina (Alconbury Developments Ltd and Others) v Same and Others HL 9-May-2001
Power to call in is administrative in nature
The powers of the Secretary of State to call in a planning application for his decision, and certain other planning powers, were essentially an administrative power, and not a judicial one, and therefore it was not a breach of the applicants’ rights . .
Cited – HM Revenue and Customs v A M Brander As Exec of The Will of The Late Fourth Earl of Balfour UTTC 16-Aug-2010
UTTC Inheritance tax – Exempt transfers and relief – Business property relief Replacement property – Deceased having liferent interest in family estate – Deceased declared to be fee simple proprietor of the . .
Cited – Daejan Investments Ltd v Benson and Others CA 28-Jan-2011
The landlord had set out to refurbish the building occupied by the defendant tenants. They began a consultation process for the repairs, but failed to complete it, and the tenants objected. The landlords now appealed against rejection of their . .
Cited – The Attorney General for Northern Ireland v Crawford and Another ChNI 4-May-2016
The AG sought leave to appeal against a decision by the tribunal for the removal of a trustee of a police charity.
Held: Permission was given. The decision of the tribunal was open to proper criticism. The appeal raised several important . .
Cited – Lancashire County Council, Regina (on The Application of) v SSEFRA and Another SC 11-Dec-2019
Two appeals as to the circumstances in which the concept of ‘statutory incompatibility’ will defeat an application to register land as a town or village green where the land is held by a public authority for statutory purposes. In the first case, . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Taxes Management, Judicial Review, Litigation Practice, Income Tax

Leading Case

Updated: 15 May 2022; Ref: scu.181055

Inland Revenue Commissioners v Stenhouse’s Trustees: 1992

Citations:

[1992] STC 103

Cited by:

Cited – Lloyds TSB Private Banking Plc (personal representative of Rosemary Antrobus deceased) v Inland Revenue (Capital Taxes); Re Cookhill Priory (No 2) LT 10-Oct-2005
LT TAX – Inheritance Tax – agricultural property relief – agricultural value – agricultural property – farmhouses – whether house occupied by ‘lifestyle’ farmer could be farmhouse – held bid of such person could . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Taxes Management

Updated: 14 May 2022; Ref: scu.242353

Arnold (Inspector of Taxes) v G Con Ltd: ChD 4 Mar 2005

The revenue appealed against an order by the general commissioners to grant to the taxpayer, a construction industry subcontractor, a fresh exemption certficate where he had been consistently late in submitting tax and NI payments of several thousand pounds.
Held: The determination was incorrect as a matter of law. The breaches could not be described as minor or technical so as to alow the commissioners to make the order they had.

Judges:

Mann J

Citations:

Times 14-Mar-2005

Statutes:

Income and Corporation Taxes Act 1988 565(4)

Citing:

Cited – Edwards (Inspector of Taxes) v Bairstow HL 25-Jul-1955
The House was asked whether a particular transaction was ‘an adventure in the nature of trade’.
Held: Although the House accepted that this was ‘an inference of fact’, on the primary facts as found by the Commissioners ‘the true and only . .

Cited by:

Appeal from – Arnold (Inspector of Taxes) v G Con Ltd CA 12-May-2006
The tax payer company had failed to send in pay as you earn and NI returns for three years. The commissioners had found this to be only a minor failure and that the company was entitled to an exemption certificate under the construction industry . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Taxes Management

Updated: 13 May 2022; Ref: scu.224049

Eagerpath Ltd v Edwards (HM Inspector of Taxes): CA 1999

Citations:

(1999) 73 TC 427

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Citing:

See Also – Eagerpath Ltd v Edwards (HM Inspector of Taxes) CA 14-Dec-2000
Where the special commissioner had determined that the dispute had been concluded by agreement, the taxpayer was precluded from appealing that decision claiming an ‘error or mistke’ That issue was not one relating to the computation of profits in . .

Cited by:

See Also – Eagerpath Ltd v Edwards (HM Inspector of Taxes) CA 14-Dec-2000
Where the special commissioner had determined that the dispute had been concluded by agreement, the taxpayer was precluded from appealing that decision claiming an ‘error or mistke’ That issue was not one relating to the computation of profits in . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Taxes Management

Updated: 13 May 2022; Ref: scu.223217

Barclays Mercantile Business Finance Ltd v Mawson (Inspector of Taxes): ChD 22 Jul 2002

The taxpayer sought to claim for capital allowances of andpound;91 million for gas pipelines. The claimant had provided the equipment through a leasing scheme.
Held: The leases were unusual, but did not appear to be merely part of a tax avoidance scheme. However, here the company already owned and operated the pipeline, and continued to do so after the arrangement. It owed the money before, and still owed it afterwards. The issue was whether the company had incurred the expenditure in provision of the pipeline, and practitioners should be careful not to lose themselves in the technical minutiae of the documentation. This was merely financial engineering, and did not qualify: ‘If corporation tax rates changed, the head lease rent payable to BMBF would change but the sublease rent payable by BGE (UK) would remain the same. If I have understood correctly how it would work, if the head lease rent went up BGE (UK) would still pay the full amount of the sublease rent to BMBF, and the balance of the (now) increased head lease rent would be paid by BGE to BMBF; if the head lease rent went down BGE (UK) would pay part of the sublease rent to BMBF (that part being equal to the (now) reduced head lease rent) and would pay the balance of the sublease rent to BGE.’

Judges:

Park J

Citations:

Times 26-Aug-2002, Gazette 03-Oct-2002, [2002] EWHC Ch 1525, [2003] STC 66

Statutes:

Capital Allowances Act 1990 24(1)

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Citing:

Cited – W T Ramsay Ltd v Inland Revenue Commissioners HL 12-Mar-1981
The taxpayers used schemes to create allowable losses, and now appealed assessment to tax. The schemes involved a series of transactions none of which were a sham, but which had the effect of cancelling each other out.
Held: If the true nature . .
Cited – McNiven (Inspector of Taxes) v Westmoreland Investments Ltd CA 26-Oct-1998
Cross loans were made between an investment company and pension schemes. The overall effect was to create payments which could be set off against Corporation Tax. They were not a pre-ordained series of transactions where the underlying loans were . .

Cited by:

Awaiting Appeal – BMBF (No 24) Limited v the Commissioners of Inland Revenue CA 6-Nov-2003
The taxpayer, a non-resident, operated a sale and lease back scheme of machinery to be used in its business within the UK. There had been a chain of leases.
Held: The court had first to identify the ‘relevant lease’. It was the head lease . .
Appeal from – Barclays Mercantile Business Finance Ltd v Mawson, HM Inspector of Taxes CA 13-Dec-2002
The taxpayer entered into a sale and leaseback arrangement in respect of a gas pipeline, and sought to set off the costs as a capital allowance.
Held: The company’s appeal succeeded: ‘There is nothing in the statute to suggest that ‘up-front . .
At first instance – Barclays Mercantile Business Finance Ltd v Mawson (HM Inspector of Taxes) HL 25-Nov-2004
The company had paid substantial sums out in establishing a gas pipeline, and claimed those sums against its tax as capital allowances. The transaction involved a sale and leaseback arrangement which the special commissioners had found to be a . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Corporation Tax, Taxes Management

Updated: 12 May 2022; Ref: scu.174737

The Commissioners of Customs And Excise v Bassimeh: CA 20 Nov 1996

The respondent had operated a restaurant through a limited company. The commissioners issued notices of assessments and penalties against the company, now in liquidation, and the defendant, on the basis that the company had consistently under-reported its takings. The commissioners appealed a decision setting aside the notices. The argument was as to whether notices had to be issued for the separate quarters. Because the revenue could calculate the penalty as equivalent to the amount under declared, no separate calculation need be made, even though, in this case, no penalty was recoverable for part of the period.

Citations:

[1996] EWCA Civ 999

Statutes:

Finance Act 1985 13(4)

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

VAT, Taxes Management

Updated: 11 May 2022; Ref: scu.140866

Regina v Frank Adam Moran (Attorney General’s Reference No 25 of 2001): CACD 27 Jul 2001

The defendant pleaded guilty to making false statements, and cheating the public revenue by understating his profits as a market trader over a protracted period. The judge made a confiscation order equal to the amount of undeclared profit. On appeal, that element was set aside. The section referred to the pecuniary advantage obtained by the cheating. The undeclared profit was not earned as a result of the cheating, but in the normal course of trade. The pecuniary advantage was the amount of underpayment of tax, with interest accrued or investment return on that sum. Neither could the later section be used to treat properly earned sums as a pecuniary advantage.

Judges:

Mantell LJ, Rougier LJ, Grigson J

Citations:

Times 08-Aug-2001, Gazette 27-Sep-2001, [2001] EWCA Crim 1770, [2002] 1 WLR 253

Statutes:

Criminal Justice Act 1988 71(5) 102(5)

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Citing:

Cited – United States Government v Montgomery and Another HL 6-Feb-2001
An English court had power to make a restraining order against the disposal of assets pending an application for confiscation pursuant to a US order. This applied even if the US original judgment predated the date on which the US was added to the . .

Cited by:

Cited – Regina v Foggon CACD 14-Feb-2003
The defendant appealed against a confiscation order, after conviction for cheating the public revenue. Funds had been diverted from his company to avoid payment of taxes.
Held: Tax which was avoided would fall under the section and be a . .
Appeal from – Regina v Dimsey HL 11-Oct-2001
The defendant provided financial services, including the provision of offshore companies for a co-defendant. They were used to secrete assets abroad. Misleading information was provided to the revenue by the applicant and others. They were charged . .
Cited – IK, Regina v CACD 8-Mar-2007
The prosecutor appealed a finding that the proceeds of cheating the revenue were not the proceeds of crime within the 2002 Act.
Held: The appeal succeeded. The case was different from Galbraith in that there was a clear finding of a cheat. The . .
Cited – May, Regina v HL 14-May-2008
The defendant had been convicted of involvement in a substantial VAT fraud, and made subject to a confiscation order. He was made subject to a confiscation order in respect of the amounts lost to the fraud where he was involved, but argued that the . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Taxes Management, Criminal Sentencing

Updated: 11 May 2022; Ref: scu.136171

Revenue and Customs v X Ltd and Others: FTTTx 3 Dec 2018

Procedure : Hearings In Private – Information notice – Third party notices under Schedule 36 Finance Act 2008 – application for direction that hearing of application for approval of notices take place inter partes and associated directions – power of Tribunal to make such directions – Derrin, Jimenez and Mr E and others v HMRC considered – application refused

Citations:

[2018] UKFTT 702 (TC)

Links:

Bailii

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Taxes Management

Updated: 11 May 2022; Ref: scu.632471

Smith v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and Another: HL 12 Jul 2006

The House considered whether under the 1992 Regulations a self-employed parent could use for his child support calculation his net earnings as declared to the Revenue, which would allow deduction of capital and other allowances properly claimed against tax.
Held: The appeal was allowed, and the decision of the Child Support Commissioner restored (majority). The precise and unusual phrase used in the regulations matched that used in the tax return. Lord Carswell: ‘one is entitled to place less emphasis on the coincidence in wording and return to the exercise of attempting by the use of the several recognised methods of statutory interpretation to ascertain the true intention of Parliament.’
(dissenting opinion) Though there was an inconsistency, the regulations was clear and could not be read to bear the interpretation proposed by the Secretary of State.

Judges:

Lord Nicholls of Birkenhead, Lord Rodger of Earlsferry, Lord Walker of Gestingthorpe, Baroness Hale of Richmond, Lord Carswell

Citations:

Times 14-Jul-2006, [2006] UKHL 35, [2006] 1 WLR 2024

Links:

Bailii

Statutes:

Child Support (Maintenance Assessments and Special Cases) Regulations 1992, Child Support Act 1991

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Citing:

Cited – Elliss v BP Oil Northern Ireland Refinery Ltd CA 1987
The company had incurred capital expenditure in machinery and plant for trading before 1972. The 1975 Act prevented them claiming the expenditure as losses, and they sought to carry them forward to 1973 when additional claims were possible. The . .
Cited – Secretary of State for Work and Pensions v M HL 8-Mar-2006
The respondent’s child lived with the estranged father for most of each week. She was obliged to contribute child support. She now lived with a woman, and complained that because her relationship was homosexual, she had been asked to pay more than . .
Cited – Kehoe, Regina (on the Application of) v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions HL 14-Jul-2005
The applicant contended that the 1991 Act infringed her human rights in denying her access to court to obtain maintenance for her children.
Held: The applicant had no substantive right to take part in the enforcement process in domestic law . .
Cited – Marckx v Belgium ECHR 13-Jun-1979
Recognition of illegitimate children
The complaint related to the manner in which parents were required to adopt their own illegitimate child in order to increase his rights. Under Belgian law, no legal bond between an unmarried mother and her child results from the mere fact of birth. . .

Cited by:

Cited – Clift, Regina (on the Application of) v Secretary of State for the Home Department HL 13-Dec-2006
The claimants were former serving prisoners who complained that the early release provisions discriminated against them unjustifiably. Each was subject to a deportation requirement, and said that in their cases the control on the time for their . .
Cited – Alvi, Regina (on The Application of) v Secretary of State for The Home Department SC 18-Jul-2012
The claimant had entered as a student, and then stayed under a work permit. New rules were brought in, and because his occupation as a physiotherapy assistant was not listed, he was not credited with sufficient points for a permit. The Court of . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Child Support, Income Tax, Taxes Management

Updated: 11 May 2022; Ref: scu.243083

Regina v Criminal Cases Review Commission, ex parte Hunt: CA 24 Nov 2000

The Commissioners of the Inland Revenue did have power to conduct a prosecution at the Crown Court without first obtaining the consent of the Attorney General, even though it was a police officer had actually laid the charge. A prosecution was conducted on behalf of a police force where the force had been involved in investigation, arrest, and charge. The charge alone was insufficient. The Court of Appeal should be reluctant to allow too many challenges of the discretion allowed the Criminal Cases Review Commission.
Lord Woolf CJ spoke in support of the common law power of the Inland Revenue Commissioners to bring prosecutions: ‘Great importance has always been attached to the ability of an ordinary member of the public to prosecute in respect of breaches of the criminal law. If an ordinary member of the public can bring proceedings for breaches of the criminal law, it would be surprising if the Inland Revenue were not in a similar position.’

Judges:

Lord Woolf CJ

Citations:

Times 24-Nov-2000, [2001] QB 1108

Statutes:

Prosecution of Offences Act 1985 3 (2)

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Citing:

Appeal from – Regina v Criminal Cases Review Commission, Michael John Hunt Admn 21-Mar-2000
. .

Cited by:

Cited – Rollins, Regina v CACD 9-Oct-2009
The court was asked whether the Financial Services Authority had itself the power to prosecute offences under the 2002 Act. The defence said that the FSA’s powers were limited to offences under the 2000 Act. The FSA relied on its common law power to . .
Cited – Rollins, Regina v SC 28-Jul-2010
The court was asked whether the Financial Services Authority had a power to prosecute money laundering offences under the 2002 Act, or whether, as contended by the defendant, its powers were limited to sections under the 2000 Act.
Held: The . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Taxes Management, Criminal Practice

Updated: 11 May 2022; Ref: scu.88428

Regina v Special Commissioners of Income Tax, Ex Parte Inland Revenue Commissioners; R v Inland: CA 27 Jun 2000

An application to the commissioner for special authority and consent to inspect bank accounts could be signed by an officer having that authority; for these purposes there was no need to distinguish between an order and a decision and might be oral. A decision refusing such an application on the grounds that it was not signed by the Board was incorrect, and there should be no need to renew the application.

Citations:

Times 27-Jun-2000

Statutes:

Taxes Management Act 1970 20(8A)

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Banking, Taxes Management

Updated: 11 May 2022; Ref: scu.85566

Regina v Commissioners of Customs and Excise, Ex Parte Building Societies Ombudsman Co Ltd: CA 8 Nov 2000

Law had been introduced which restricted retrospectively the ability of taxpayers to reclaim overpaid VAT to a period of three years. Such legislation did not however allow the Commissioners to seek to recover repayments already repaid in the period immediately before the legislation came into effect.

Citations:

Times 08-Nov-2000

Statutes:

Provisional Collection of Taxes Act 1986

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Taxes Management, VAT

Updated: 11 May 2022; Ref: scu.85193

McNiven (Inspector of Taxes) v Westmoreland Investments Ltd: ChD 19 Aug 1997

Loans made between associated companies for the sole purpose of creating a charge to tax were ineffective as avoidance scheme.

Citations:

Times 19-Aug-1997

Statutes:

Income and Corporation Taxes Act 1988 338

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Cited by:

At ChD – McNiven (Inspector of Taxes) v Westmoreland Investments Ltd CA 26-Oct-1998
Cross loans were made between an investment company and pension schemes. The overall effect was to create payments which could be set off against Corporation Tax. They were not a pre-ordained series of transactions where the underlying loans were . .
At Chd – MacNiven (Inspector of Taxes) v Westmoreland Investments Ltd HL 15-Feb-2001
The fact that a payment of interest was made only to create a tax advantage did not prevent its being properly claimed. Interest was paid for the purposes of setting it against tax, when the debt was discharged. A company with substantial losses had . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Income Tax, Taxes Management

Updated: 10 May 2022; Ref: scu.83579

Lonrho Plc v Fayed and Others (No 4 ): QBD 13 Jul 1993

Tax documents for an individual were subject to a public interest immunity – but could still be ordered to be produced.

Citations:

Times 13-Jul-1993

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Cited by:

Appeal from – Lonrho Plc v Fayed and Others (No 4 ) CA 27-Oct-1993
Public interest immunity does not attach to documents in the hands of a taxpayer and his advisers. They are not in any event discloseable. (Bingham) ‘a claim made by the revenue to withhold documents relating to a taxpayer’s tax affairs from . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Taxes Management

Updated: 10 May 2022; Ref: scu.83194

Lonrho Plc v Fayed and Others (No 4 ): CA 27 Oct 1993

Public interest immunity does not attach to documents in the hands of a taxpayer and his advisers. They are not in any event discloseable. (Bingham) ‘a claim made by the revenue to withhold documents relating to a taxpayer’s tax affairs from production without his consent is properly to be regarded as a claim for public interest immunity. But what matters more than the label is the practice, . . . the courts will give very great weight to preserving the confidentiality of such documents in the hands of the revenue. They will override that confidentiality only if, according to settled principles, the applicant shows very strong grounds for concluding that on the facts of the particular case the public interest in the administration of justice outweighs the public interest in preserving the confidentiality of the documents.’

Judges:

Sir Thomas Bingham MR, Leggatt LJ

Citations:

Ind Summary 20-Dec-1993, Times 27-Oct-1993, [1994] QB 775

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Citing:

Appeal from – Lonrho Plc v Fayed and Others (No 4 ) QBD 13-Jul-1993
Tax documents for an individual were subject to a public interest immunity – but could still be ordered to be produced. . .
Cited – Conway v Rimmer HL 28-Feb-1968
Crown Privilege for Documents held by the Polie
The plaintiff probationary police constable had been investigated, prosecuted and cleared of an allegation of theft. He now claimed damages for malicious prosecution, and in the course of the action, sought disclosure of five documents, but these . .

Cited by:

Cited – Mount Murray Country Club Ltd and others v Commission of Inquiry Into Mount Murray and Another (1) PC 7-Jul-2003
(Isle of Man) The company appealed an order requiring disclosure of their tax documents to an enquiry. The enquiry into possible corruption had been ordered by the Tynwald.
Held: The provisions of the Act protecting tax documents from . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Litigation Practice, Taxes Management

Updated: 10 May 2022; Ref: scu.83195

Johnson v Blackpool General Commissioners; Johnson and Another v Same: CA 11 Jul 1997

Penalties of pounds 2,000 for failure to produce books for inspection at sensible time as required were entirely appropriate.

Citations:

Times 11-Jul-1997

Statutes:

General Commissioners (Jurisdiction and Procedure) Regulations 1994 (1994 No 1812)

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Administrative, Taxes Management

Updated: 10 May 2022; Ref: scu.82551

McEwan v Martin (Inspector of Taxes): ChD 20 Jan 2005

The tax inspector had sought to make an assessment outside the six year period, saying that the accounts had been prepared negligently. The taxpayer had claimed roll-over relief.
Held: The fact that the inspector had relied on professionally drawn accounts without investigating them further at the time was not a reason to disallow a reopening of the accounts. The inspector had been entitled to rely upon the accounts at the time. They did not cease to have been prepared negligently only because the tax inspector had accepted them.

Judges:

Park J

Citations:

Times 01-Jul-2005

Statutes:

Taxes Management Act 1970 36

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Taxes Management

Updated: 09 May 2022; Ref: scu.228427

Revenue and Customs v Charman and Another: FD 29 May 2012

The parties had fought and had decided their financial relief following the divorce. The revenue now applied for disclosure of the transcripts so as to settle a tax dispute with the husband.
Held: The application failed: ‘Paraphrasing the law is always risky but I think the effect of it can be shortly stated thus. As a general rule documents and other evidence produced in ancillary relief proceedings (now called financial remedy proceedings) are not disclosable to third parties outside the proceedings save that exceptionally and rarely and for very good reason they can be disclosed with the leave of the court. The fact that the evidence may be relevant or useful is not by itself a good enough reason to undermine the rule.
No one would seriously argue with the proposition that it is in the public interest for the right amount of tax to be paid by taxpayers. Further there is no doubt that the documents sought in this case would be relevant to the proceedings before the First Tier Tribunal Tax Chamber and, for obvious reasons might well be of assistance to them.’ No exceptional reasons applied here to justify a departure from that rule.
‘If, of course the husband himself wishes to rely upon documents/evidence he produced during the hearing in front of me he may have leave to do so but in that event all relevant material must be produced to the Tribunal not just highlights he selects which support his case.’

Judges:

Coleridge J

Citations:

[2012] EWHC 1448 (Fam), [2012] WLR(D) 165, [2012] 2 FLR 1119

Links:

Bailii, WLRD

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Cited by:

Cited – V v W FC 2-Dec-2020
FDR Appointment Must Remain Confidential
XYZ had been appointed to value a family company within financial relief proceedings, but on seeking payment of their fees, and facing a counterclaim alleging negligence, they sought disclosure of the transcript of the Financial Dispute Resolution . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Family, Taxes Management, Litigation Practice

Updated: 08 May 2022; Ref: scu.460531

Khan and another v First East Brixton General Commissioners and Inland Revenue Commissioners: 1986

Judges:

Harman J

Citations:

[1986] STC 331

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Cited by:

Cited – Stockler v HM Revenue and Customs ChD 22-Sep-2009
The taxpayer appealed against a decision confirming the Commissioners’ power to impose a penalty on him. It was said that his solicitors’ firm had negligently understated its profits. A settlement was proposed allowing a withdrawal of the return, . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Taxes Management

Updated: 07 May 2022; Ref: scu.375139

Trautwein v Federal Commissioner of Taxation: 9 Sep 1936

(High Court of Australia) Latham CJ considered how the Inland Revenue might make an assessment of a taxpayer’s income and said: ‘In the absence of some record in the mind or in the books of the taxpayer, it would often be quite impossible to make a correct assessment. The assessment would necessarily be a guess to some extent and almost certainly inaccurate in fact. There is every reason to assume that the legislature did not intend to confer upon a potential taxpayer the valuable privilege of disqualifying himself in that capacity by the simple and relatively unskilled method of losing either his memory or his books.
The application of section 39 is not, in my opinion, excluded as soon as it is shown that an element in the assessment is a guess and that it is therefore very probably wrong. It is prima facie right – and remains right until the appellant shows that it is wrong. If it were necessary to decide the point I would, as at present advised, be prepared to hold that the taxpayer must ‘at least as a general rule’ go further and show not only negatively that the assessment is wrong, but also positively what correction should be made in order to make it right or more nearly right. I say ‘as a general rule’ because, conceivably, there might be a case where it appeared that the assessment had been made upon no intelligible basis even as an approximation, and the court would then set aside the assessment and remit it to the commissioner for further consideration.’

Judges:

Latham CJ, Starke, Dixon and Evatt JJ.

Citations:

[1936] 56 CLR 63, [1936] HCA 77

Links:

Austlii

Jurisdiction:

Australia

Cited by:

Cited – Bi-Flex Caribbean Ltd v Board of Inland Revenue PC 1990
The general burden falls upon a tax payer to provide the information to allow a tax assessment to be made: ‘The element of guess-work and the almost unavoidable inaccuracy in a properly made best of judgment assessment, as the cases have . .
Cited – Momin and others v HM Revenue and Customs ChD 15-Jun-2007
The appellants challenged an assessment to income tax, saying that they had not been supported by a bona fide discovery of any loss of tax, and was otherwise unsupported by evidence.
Held: ‘The appellants have over a period of many years . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Taxes Management

Updated: 07 May 2022; Ref: scu.267648

Inland Revenue Commissioners v Duchess of Portland: 1982

The taxpayer had homes in Quebec and in England. The court was asked to decide which was her principle residence, and in particular whether she had acquired a domicile of choice on an annual visit in 1974.
Held: Residence for the in the law of domicile is ‘The primary question therefore is whether the taxpayer actually ceased to reside here after January 1, 1974. Residence in a country for the purposes of the law of domicile is physical presence in that country as an inhabitant of it. If the necessary intention is also there, an existing domicile of choice can sometimes be abandoned and another domicile acquired or revived by a residence of short duration in a second country. But that state of affairs is inherently improbable in a case where the domiciliary divides his physical presence between two countries at a time. In such a case it is necessary to look at all the facts in order to decide which of the two countries is the one he inhabits.’

Judges:

Nourse J

Citations:

[1982] STC 149

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Cited by:

Cited – Gaines-Cooper v HM Revenue and Customs ChD 13-Nov-2007
The parties disputed the domicile of the tax-payer. He had a domicile of origin in the UK, but asserted that he had acquired a domicile of choice in the Seychelles. The Special Commissioners had allowed, in assessing the domicile at any time, of . .
Cited – Barlow Clowes International Ltd and Others v Henwood CA 23-May-2008
The receiver appealed against an order finding that the debtor petitioner was not domiciled here when the order was made. The debtor had a domicile of origin in England, but later acquired on in the Isle of Man. He then acquired a home in Mauritius . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Taxes Management, Family

Updated: 07 May 2022; Ref: scu.261302

S v S (Inland Revenue: Tax Evasion): FD 1997

Disclosure of Ancillary Relief Papers to HMRC

Wilson J considered disclosure of materials filed in the course of matrimonial proceedings to the Inland Revenue: ‘Under both r 10.15(6) and r 10.20(3) I have a discretion. In the light of the authorities I propose to exercise it by reference to the following considerations.
It is greatly in the public interest that all tax due should be paid and that in serious cases, pour encourager les autres, evaders of tax should be convicted and sentenced. It feels unseemly that a judge to whose notice tax evasion is brought should turn a blind eye to it by not causing it to be reported to the Revenue. In one sense that would almost cheapen the law.
On the other hand it is greatly in the public interest that in proceedings for ancillary relief the parties should make full and frank disclosure of their resources and thus often of aspects of their financial history. Were it to be understood that candour would be likely to lead – in all but the very rare case – to exposure of under-declarations to the Revenue, the pressure wrongfully to dissemble within the proceedings might be irresistible to a far bigger congregation of litigants than is typified by the husband in these proceedings, who of course resolved not to be candid in any event. False presentations by respondents in ancillary proceedings have two repercussions, both seriously contrary to the public interest:
(a)either the judge remains deceived, in which the case the award is likely to be inaptly low, or he perceives the deception, whereupon he may draw necessarily broad inferences of hidden wealth which, depending on their scale, could make the award inaptly high or indeed leave it still inaptly low; and
(b)applicants are seldom minded to compromise their claims on the basis of presentations which they believe to be materially false and their stance, if justified by the court’s findings, will often be upheld in relation to costs. Yet the family justice system depends upon the compromise of all but a few applications for ancillary relief.
Between these two opposing public interests must the individual circumstances be weighed.’

Judges:

Wilson J

Citations:

[1997] 2 FLR 774

Statutes:

Family Procedure (Amendment) Rules 2012 29.12

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Cited by:

Cited – Churchhouse, Regina (on the Application of) v Inland Revenue Admn 4-Apr-2003
The taxpayer was a revenue informer one whose trade is described by Coke as ‘viperous vermin [who] under the reverend mantle of law and justice instituted for protection of the innocent, and the good of the Commonwealth, did vexe and depauperize the . .
Cited – V v W FC 2-Dec-2020
FDR Appointment Must Remain Confidential
XYZ had been appointed to value a family company within financial relief proceedings, but on seeking payment of their fees, and facing a counterclaim alleging negligence, they sought disclosure of the transcript of the Financial Dispute Resolution . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Taxes Management

Updated: 07 May 2022; Ref: scu.194952

Regina (Cooke) v Revenue and Customs Commissioners: QBD 30 Jan 2007

The claimant solicitor sought a judicial review of a requirement made by the revenue that he must produce the papers of his client taxpayer under the section.
Held: The effect of the section was to require a notice to be given by a commissioner and not by an inspector, and altered the applicable provisions according to who served the notice. The section left unsaid the extent to which the commissioners could delegate their functions, and any decision remained subject to the possibility of a judicial review. A public authority has a duty to provide full and fair disclosure and explanations.

Judges:

Munby J

Citations:

Times 12-Feb-2007

Statutes:

Taxes Management Act 1970 20

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Citing:

Applied – Regina v Special Commissioner And Another, ex parte Morgan Grenfell and Co Ltd HL 16-May-2002
The inspector issued a notice requiring production of certain documents. The respondents refused to produce them, saying that they were protected by legal professional privilege.
Held: Legal professional privilege is a fundamental part of . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Legal Professions, Taxes Management

Updated: 07 May 2022; Ref: scu.248919

HM Revenue and Customs v Vodafone 2: ChD 2006

The revenue had sought an order for disclosure of documents relating to the income of wholly controlled subsidiaries. There was no difference between the case where a question of Community law arose on which a preliminary ruling by the ECJ was required and any other point of law. In either case it was not enough that the Revenue considered that the law was as they contended it to be.
Held: ‘If the reasonableness of the grounds for not issuing a closure notice depends on a question of law which the Commissioners can decide, surely the right course is for them to decide it. Or at the every least it must be open to them to decide it.’ There was no reason why the commissioners should not be able to decide a point of law on a schedule 33 application. The commissioners had been correct to say that the inspector should seek a ruling from the ECJ.

Judges:

Park J

Citations:

[2006] STC 483

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Citing:

Appeal from – Vodafone v Revenue and Customs SCIT 24-May-2005
. .

Cited by:

Appeal from – HM Revenue and Customs v Vodafone 2 CA 28-Jul-2006
The inspector had sought additional information from the company with respect to its tax returns, believing that the company had not provided sufficient information about the earnings of foreign controlled companies. They now challenged the ability . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Corporation Tax, Taxes Management, European

Updated: 07 May 2022; Ref: scu.244206

MacGregor v Clamp and Son: 1914

A distress for taxes was ‘really by way of execution’.

Citations:

[1914] 1 KB 288

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Cited by:

Not followed – Herbert Berry Associates Ltd v Inland Revenue Commissioners ChD 1976
The collector of taxes distrained on the goods of the company under section 61 TMA 1970 for unpaid taxes and the company entered into a walking possession agreement. Before the collector had sold the goods, and completed the distress, the company . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Insolvency, Taxes management

Updated: 07 May 2022; Ref: scu.228991

Greenberg v Inland Revenue Commissioners: HL 1972

A company created a new class of preferred shares which it issued credited as fully paid to its two shareholders. They sold the shares to a purchaser on terms that the price was to be paid by instalments. Under arrangements made between the parties the company paid dividends on the shares which were paid into the purchaser’s bank account. Corresponding sums were then paid out of the bank account to the shareholders in payment of the purchase price for the shares. By this means the shareholders converted dividends, which would have been taxable in their hands, into instalments of the purchase price for their shares, which were not. The problem was again one of timing. The arrangements were made before the enactment of the Finance Act 1960, but the payments were made after it. The Revenue did not contend that the declaration and payment of a dividend by itself was a transaction in securities. Its contentions were more modest. It did not focus its attention on the dividends. It claimed that the payment of the instalments of the purchase price, or the completion of the sale by such payment, was such a transaction. All members of the Committee accepted the Revenue’s contention that the contract of sale, which was clearly a transaction in securities, was not carried out until the instalments of the purchase price were paid. Four members of the Committee also agreed that the payments of the instalments of the purchase price were themselves transactions in securities in consequence of which a tax advantage had been obtained. Lord Simon thought that the payments of the dividends were the transactions in securities in consequence of which the tax advantage was obtained. Lord Reid agreed with him but did not rest his conclusion on this ground. Lord Guest was equivocal on this point; while Lord Wilberforce expressly reserved his position.

Judges:

Lord Reid, Lord Morris, Lord Guest and Lord Simon

Citations:

[1972] AC 109

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Cited by:

Cited – Inland Revenue Commissioners v Laird Group plc CA 30-Apr-2002
The taxpayer had sources of foreign income. Arrangements were made to take the benefit through the payment of interim dividends, which it intended to use to set off against liability for advance corporation tax. The Commissioner contended that these . .
Cited – Her Majesty’s Commissioners of Inland Revenue v Laird Group plc HL 16-Oct-2003
Was the payment of a dividend in respect of shares ‘a transaction in securities’ or ‘a transaction relating to securities’ within the meaning of section 703.
Held: ‘As a matter of ordinary language, the creation, issue, sale, purchase, . .
Cited – John Mander Pension Trustees Ltd v Revenue and Customs SC 29-Jul-2015
The pension scheme had been approved, but that approval later withdraw. HMRC issued assessment for the years in which it had been approved. The taxpayer argued that such assessments applied to the date with effect from which the approval is . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Taxes Management

Updated: 06 May 2022; Ref: scu.182902

Buswell v Inland Revenue Commissioners: CA 1974

Judges:

Orr LJ, Russell and Stamp LJJ

Citations:

[1974] 1 WLR 1631

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Citing:

Approved – In the Estate of Fuld, decd (No 3) ChD 1967
The deceased had spent relatively equal periods in two or more countries. The parties disputed his domicile.
Held: A blind adherence to foreign law can not be always expected of an English Court. The legal relationship between a person and the . .

Cited by:

Cited – Barlow Clowes International Ltd and Others v Henwood CA 23-May-2008
The receiver appealed against an order finding that the debtor petitioner was not domiciled here when the order was made. The debtor had a domicile of origin in England, but later acquired on in the Isle of Man. He then acquired a home in Mauritius . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Taxes Management, Litigation Practice

Updated: 05 May 2022; Ref: scu.268050

Rossano v Manufacturers Life Insurance Co: 1963

The plaintiff an Egyptian national bought insurance from the defendant Canadian company (MLI) with branches inter alia in Egypt. When the policies matured, Rassano brought an action in England claiming the money due under them. In defence, MLI argued, inter alia, that it was not liable to pay Rossano such sums as garnishee orders had been served upon MLI’s Egyptian branch by the Egyptian tax department in respect of tax alleged to be due by Rassano and that payment to Rossano would expose MLI to the risk of having to pay the money twice. The policies prescribed the mode of payment as by banker’s demand draft on London ‘on New York’ ie, the situs of the debt was not Egypt.
Held: McNair J relied refused recognition of the validity of the garnishment orders, saying that recognition of those orders would offend against the well-settled principle that an English court would not enforce a foreign revenue law.
However, McNair J addressed the parties following arguments on the choice of law question outlined by the learned judge. On behalf of MLI it was submitted (1) that whatever be the proper law of the contract, the debt is and was situated in Cairo and that debt has been validly attached in the country where it was situated; (2) that an English court will as a matter of private international law recognise and give effect to the validity of that attachment and not put a garnishee in peril of having to pay twice, and that it does not matter whether the attachment proceedings are in respect of a revenue claim; (3) that if the debt is not situated in Egypt, the English court will as a matter of comity give effect to the proceedings and will not put the garnishee in peril of having to pay twice if the court is satisfied (a) that by the law of the place of attachment the situs of the debt is in that place, that is, Egypt; or (b) that by the law of the place of attachment there is jurisdiction over the debtor, Rossano, the garnishee, MLI, and the garnishor, the Egyptian tax department.
Rossano had submitted (1) that the situs of the debt was not Egypt; (2) that the garnishee orders were invalid (3) that the garnishee orders provide no defence since (a) no payment has been made under either or (b) Neither of them was made until after the maturity date on which MLI should have paid; (4) that the court should not recognise the garnishee order as to do so would be indirectly at least to enforce a foreign revenue law; and (5) that the orders being in the nature of administrative orders and not orders of any court, an English court will not enforce them. McNair J said: ‘Many of the points raised in these submissions raise difficult questions of private international law upon which English authority is scanty. But as I have reached the conclusion that the fundamental objection to the recognition of these orders is that their recognition would offend against the well-settled principle that the English court will not recognise or enforce directly or indirectly a foreign revenue law or claim, it is not necessary for me as a matter of decision to deal with many of the other points raised.’ He went on to observe obiter: ‘on the assumption that the garnishee orders or either of them are valid by Egyptian law, and by that law binding upon [MLI] . . being garnishee or sequestration orders imposed by the act of the executive, and not the result of any judicial proceedings, must or should an English court afford them recognition . . The editors of Dicey when stating in rule 92 that the validity and effect of an attachment or garnishment of a debt is governed by the lex situs of the debt are clearly referring to garnishee orders made by a competent court. I should not be disposed on general principles to extend the recognition further.’

Judges:

McNair J

Citations:

[1963] 2 QB 352

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Cited by:

Cited – Revenue and Customs and Another v Ben Nevis (Holdings) Ltd and Others ChD 20-Jul-2012
The claimant sought to make arrangements with a view to collecting substantial arrears of tax due to South Africa. The revenue said that it had that power by virtue of the double taxation treaty with South Aftrica. The company replied that the . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Taxes Management, International

Updated: 04 May 2022; Ref: scu.519311

Inland Revenue Commissioners v Woollen: CA 1992

The taxpayer and three associated companies offered to the IRC an ‘investigation settlement agreement’. The amount agreed to be payable jointly and severally to IRC was not paid in full and the IRC obtained summary judgment for over andpound;119,000. The companies went into administrative receivership. The taxpayer complained that the Revenue had failed to require that the outstanding sum should be treated as a preferential debt by the Receivers. He claimed that his position was analogous to that of a surety and, by reason of the Revenue’s failure to claim preference, that he was altogether released from performing the agreement.
Held: Dillon LJ said: ‘I take the view that the practice of the Revenue not to claim as preferential amounts claimed under investigation settlement agreements is a valid practice in law, because any claim to treat as preferential such sums under a settlement agreement in the form of that we have in the present case, which is a standard Revenue form, would be invalid.’ and
‘The validity of the practice of the Revenue in settling claims for outstanding tax and possible penalties and interest by investigation settlement agreements such as that in the present case was upheld by this court in IRC v Nuttall [1990] STC 194, [1990] 1 WLR 631. They did not there need to go into the precise points we have here but there are certain observations which are helpful.
As I see it, when a settlement agreement of this type is entered into, the Revenue have a new cause of action, namely, a cause of action for the sums agreed to be paid by the agreement according to the terms of that agreement. Thus immediately after entering into the agreement, the Revenue could not have sued for anything until the first instalment became due under the terms of the agreement. If that instalment was not duly paid within 30 days of the date of the letter notifying acceptance of the offer, the only remedy available to the Revenue would have been to sue for the amount of that instalment by an action in debt, presumably in the Queen’s Bench Division. There could be no question of seeking enforcement by levying distress or by proceedings in the Magistrates Court under s 61 or s 65 of the Taxes Management Act, as Bingham LJ points out ([1990] STC 194 at 205, [1990] 1 WLR 631 at 643-644) in the Nuttall case. There are observations of Parker LJ ([1990] STC 194 at 200, [1990] 1 WLR 631 at 638) to the same effect.’
Nolan LJ agreed: ‘Thus here again, as it seems to me, what is being said is that there is a distinction-narrow it may be but crucial in principle-between what the Revenue collect under the contract and what they might otherwise be entitled to collect under the statute.
Tax liability can only originate from a statute. It cannot originate from a contract. Under the special provisions of s 54 tax liability duly originating from an assessment under the statute can by special statutory provision be determined by agreement. Indeed, most assessments, without any need for a formal appeal, are assessments made by agreement between the taxpayer and the party. It is true still, by and large, to say that the people of this country are taxed by consent. But it is a very different thing, it seems to me, to attribute to the instalments payable under the contract in the present case the quality as to any part of tax or interest or penalties. No assessment of the tax liability is necessarily made in these cases at all and if an assessment is made, as we are told it has been in the present case, what is payable under the agreement is not the result of a final determination of the statutory claim but a compromise between the parties in their contractual capacity.’
Hirst LJ said: ‘It follows that the whole foundation of the taxpayer’s case here disappears since his liability under the agreement sounds in debt and not in tax.’

Judges:

Dillon LJ, Nolan LJ, Hirst LJ

Citations:

[1992] STC 994

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Cited by:

Cited – Stockler v HM Revenue and Customs ChD 22-Sep-2009
The taxpayer appealed against a decision confirming the Commissioners’ power to impose a penalty on him. It was said that his solicitors’ firm had negligently understated its profits. A settlement was proposed allowing a withdrawal of the return, . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Taxes Management

Updated: 02 May 2022; Ref: scu.375140

Caffoor v Columbo Income Tax Commissioner: PC 1961

Taxation and rating decisions are sui generis. Lord Radcliffe said: ‘The critical thing is that the dispute which alone can be determined by any decision given in the course of these proceedings is limited to one subject only, the amount of the assessable income for the year in which the assessment is challenged. It is only the amount of that assessable income that is concluded by an agreement or by a decision on an appeal against it (see section 75). Although, of course, the process of arriving at the necessary decision is likely to involve consideration of questions of law, turning upon the construction of the Ordinance or of other statutes or upon the general law, and the tribunal will have to form its view on those questions, all these questions have to be treated as collateral or incidental to what is the only issue that is truly submitted to determination (cf Reg v Hutchings).’ and ‘It may be that the principles applied in these cases form a somewhat anomalous branch of the general law of estoppel per rem judicatam, and are not easily derived from or transferred to other branches of litigation in which such estoppels have to be considered; but in their Lordships opinion they are well established in their own field, and it is not by any means to be assumed that the result is one that should be regretted in the public interest.’

Judges:

Lord Radcliffe

Citations:

[1961] AC 584

Cited by:

Cited – Matalan Retail Ltd v Revenue and Customs ChD 5-Aug-2009
The taxpayer imported swimwear for sale. The respondent had incorrectly indicated that such swimwear had one classification. The claimant sought to prevent the respondent reclassifying the goods, saying that they had made given binding tariff . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Commonwealth, Taxes Management, Rating

Updated: 02 May 2022; Ref: scu.372324

King of the Hellenes v Brostrom: 1923

Rowlatt J said: ‘It is perfectly elementary that a foreign government cannot come here — nor will the courts of other countries allow our government to go there — and sue a person found in that jurisdiction for taxes levied and which he is declared to be liable to by the country to which he belongs.’

Judges:

Rowlatt J

Citations:

(1923) 16 LlLRep 190

Cited by:

Cited – Mbasogo, President of the State of Equatorial Guinea and Another v Logo Ltd and others CA 23-Oct-2006
Foreign Public Law Not Enforceable Here
The claimant alleged a conspiracy by the defendants for his overthrow by means of a private coup d’etat. The defendants denied that the court had jurisdiction. The claimants appealed dismissal of their claim to damages.
Held: The claims were . .
Cited – Government of India v Taylor HL 1955
The Government of India sought to prove in the voluntary liquidation of a company registered in the United Kingdom but trading in India for a sum due in respect of Indian income tax, including capital gains tax, which arose on the sale of the . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

International, Taxes Management

Updated: 01 May 2022; Ref: scu.245575

Argosam Finance Co Ltd v Oxby (Inspector of Taxes): CA 1965

A company which dealt in shares issued an originating summons in the Chancery Division requesting a declaration as to the correct method of computing its income for the purposes of loss relief. The revenue challenged the proceedings as an abuse of process.
Held: The taxpayer’s appeal failed. The strike out by J Plowman was confirmed. The proceedings were an abuse of process. Lord Denning MR: ‘If the summons had been limited to question (a)-that is, to determine whether the company was entitled to relief under section 341 [of the Income Tax Act 1952]-I would agree that the courts would have no jurisdiction to determine it. The question is one which is entrusted by the legislature to the exclusive province of the commissioners, and the courts cannot entertain it. It falls within the decision of the House of Lords in Barraclough v Brown.’

Judges:

Lord Denning MR

Citations:

[1965] Ch 390

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Citing:

Cited – Barraclough v Brown HL 1897
The 1889 Act gave statutory undertakers who had incurred expenditure in removing a sunken vessel a right ‘to recover such expenses from the owner of such vessel in a court of summary jurisdiction.’ the undertakers began their action in the High . .

Cited by:

Cited – Autologic Holdings Plc and others v Commissioners of Inland Revenue HL 28-Jul-2005
Taxpayer companies challenged the way that the revenue restricted claims for group Corporation Tax relief for subsidiary companies in Europe. The issue was awaiting a decision of the European Court. The Revenue said that the claims now being made by . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Taxes Management

Updated: 30 April 2022; Ref: scu.229079

Peter Buchanan Limited and Macharg v McVey: 1954

(Supreme Court of Ireland) The plaintiff was a company registered in Scotland put into compulsory liquidation by the revenue under a substantial claim for excess profits tax and income tax. The liquidator was really a nominee of the revenue. The defendant director had realised all the company’s assets and having paid all the debts save the revenue, had the balance transferred to himself to his credit with an Irish bank. He moved to Ireland. The action appeared to seek to recover the balance from the defendant at the instance of the company directed by the liquidator.
Held: The director’s actions were dishonestly intended to defeat the claim of the revenue in Scotland as a creditor. However though the action was in form an action by the company to recover these assets, it was found ‘For the purpose of this case it is sufficient to say that when it appears to the court that the whole object of the suit is to collect tax for a foreign revenue, and that this will be the sole result of a decision in favour of the plaintiff, then a court is entitled to reject the claim by refusing jurisdiction’ and as an attempt to enforce indirectly a claim to tax by the revenue authorities of another State, the action was dismissed.

Judges:

Kingsmill Moore J

Citations:

[1955] AC 516, [1954] IR 89

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Cited by:

Approved – Government of India v Taylor HL 1955
The Government of India sought to prove in the voluntary liquidation of a company registered in the United Kingdom but trading in India for a sum due in respect of Indian income tax, including capital gains tax, which arose on the sale of the . .
Approved – In re State of Norway’s application (Nos 1 and 2) HL 1989
The House considered an application by a foreign state seeking assistance in obtaining evidence here to be used in enforcing its own revenue laws at home.
Held: Rule 3 of the Convention encapsulated a ‘fundamental rule of English Law’, but did . .
Followed – QRS 1 APS and others v Frandsen CA 21-May-1999
The appellants were all Danish companies put into liquidation for asset stripping in contravention of Danish law. The respondent was resident in the UK and had owned them. The Danish tax authorities issued tax demands and the liquidators now sought . .
Cited – Williams and Humbert Ltd v W and H Trade Marks (Jersey) Ltd HL 1986
There had been an expropriation by Spanish decrees of shares in a Spanish company whose English subsidiary had rights in trade marks which it had sold to a Jersey company. The Spanish and English companies sought certain relief in relation to the . .
Cited – Holland v Lampen-Wolfe HL 20-Jul-2000
The US established a base at Menwith Hill in Yorkshire, and provided educational services through its staff to staff families. The claimant a teacher employed at the base alleged that a report on her was defamatory. The defendant relied on state . .
Cited – Hill (As Trustee In Bankruptcy of Nurkowski) v Spread Trustee Company Ltd and Another CA 12-May-2006
The defendants sought relief for transactions entered into at an undervalue. The bankrupt had entered into charges and an assignment of a loan account in their favour before his bankruptcy, and the trustee had obtained an order for them to be set . .
Cited – Mbasogo, President of the State of Equatorial Guinea and Another v Logo Ltd and others CA 23-Oct-2006
Foreign Public Law Not Enforceable Here
The claimant alleged a conspiracy by the defendants for his overthrow by means of a private coup d’etat. The defendants denied that the court had jurisdiction. The claimants appealed dismissal of their claim to damages.
Held: The claims were . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

International, Taxes Management

Updated: 30 April 2022; Ref: scu.225455

Cenlon Finance Co Ltd v Ellwood: 1961

The inspector may use discovery procedures after a tax assessment has been settled where it newly appears that the taxpayer has been undercharged. The discovery allowed is to be given a wide meaning.

Judges:

Viscount Simonds

Citations:

(1961) TC 176

Cited by:

Cited – Langham (HM Inspector of Taxes) v Veltema CA 26-Feb-2004
The tax inspector had sought to re-open a tax assessment outside the time limit provided. He had discovered that a house had been given to the tax payer by his employers. The taxpayer said this had been discoverable from his self-assessment tax . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Taxes Management

Updated: 30 April 2022; Ref: scu.225368

Inland Revenue Commissioners v Lysaght: HL 1928

The taxpayer, who was living in Ireland would come regularly to England for a total of less than three months a year, and would spend a week or so in a hotel for the purpose of board meetings. The House considered the meaning of the requirement of ‘ordinarily resident’.
Held: There are two principal features of habitual residence; the residence must be adopted voluntarily and for settled purposes. Viscount Sumner said: ‘I think the converse to ‘ordinarily’ is ‘extraordinarily’ and that part of the regular order of a man’s life, adopted voluntarily and for settled purposes, is not ‘extraordinary.”
Lord Buckmaster said: ‘Though a man may make his home elsewhere and stay in this country only because business compels him, yet none the less, if the periods for which and the conditions under which he stays are such that they may be regarded as constituting residence, as in my opinion they were in this case, it is open to the commissioners to find that in fact he does so reside, and if residence be once established ordinarily resident means in my opinion no more than that the residence is not casual and uncertain but that the person held to reside does so in the ordinary course of his life’.

Judges:

Viscount Sumner, Lord Buckmaster

Citations:

[1928] AC 234

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Cited by:

Cited – Nessa v Chief Adjudication Officer HL 3-Nov-1999
Mrs. Nessa arrived at Heathrow aged 55 having lived all her life in Bangladesh. Her husband, Mr. Mobarak Ali, had lived in the United Kingdom from 1962 until he died in 1975 and when she arrived here, Mrs. Nessa had a right of abode. She hoped to . .
Cited – Regina v Barnet London Borough Council, Ex parte Shah HL 16-Dec-1982
The five applicants had lived in the UK for at least three years while attending school or college. All five were subject to immigration control, four had entered as students with limited leave to remain for the duration of their studies, and the . .
Cited – Regina v Barnet London Borough Council, Ex parte Shah HL 16-Dec-1982
The five applicants had lived in the UK for at least three years while attending school or college. All five were subject to immigration control, four had entered as students with limited leave to remain for the duration of their studies, and the . .
Cited – High Tech International Ag and others v Deripaska QBD 20-Dec-2006
The clamants brought actions for damages for torts said to have been committed by the defendants in Russia. They said that the defendant was domiciled within the jurisdiction under the EU Regulation.
Held: Domicile for the issue of . .
Cited – Cornwall Council, Regina (on The Application of) v Secretary of State for Health and Somerset County Council SC 8-Jul-2015
PH had severe physical and learning disabilities and was without speech, lacking capacity to decide for himself where to live. Since the age of four he received accommodation and support at public expense. Until his majority in December 2004, he was . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Taxes Management, Jurisdiction

Updated: 30 April 2022; Ref: scu.200332

Van Boeckel v Customs and Excise Commissioners: 1981

The court explained the meaning of the requirement that a tax assessment made by the Commissioners should be the ‘best of their judgment’: ‘the Tribunal should not treat an assessment as invalid merely because they disagree as to how the judgment should have been exercised. A much stronger finding is required: for example, that the assessment has been reached ‘dishonestly or vindictively or capriciously’; or is a ‘spurious estimate or guess in which all elements of judgment are missing’; or is ‘wholly unreasonable’. In substance those tests are indistinguishable from the familiar Wednesbury principles ([1948] 1 KB 223). Short of such a finding, there is no justification for setting aside the assessment.’ and ‘What the words ‘best of their judgment’ envisage, in my view, is that the Commissioners will fairly consider all material placed before them and, on that material, come to a decision which is one which is reasonable and not arbitrary as to the amount of tax which is due. As long as there is some material on which the Commissioners can reasonably act then they are not required to carry out investigations which may or may not result in further material being placed before them’

Judges:

Woolf J

Citations:

[1981] STC 290

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Cited by:

Cited – Rahman v Commissioners of Customs and Excise CA 20-Dec-2002
The taxpayer appealed aganst rejection of his objection to an assessment to VAT . .
Cited – Pegasus Birds Ltd v Commissioners of HM Customs and Excise CA 27-Jul-2004
The taxpayer complained that the assessment imposed by the Commissioners was wholly unreasonable, and void. The tribunal had found the assessment wholly unreasonable, but the High Court had allowed the Commissioners’ appeal.
Held: There was no . .
Cited – Company Registrations Online Ltd v Revenue and Customs VDT 7-Aug-2008
VDT ASSESSMENT – best judgment – correctness of assessments accepted – challenge to the reasonableness of commissioners in raising an assessment – appeal dismissed. . .
Cited – Lok v Revenue and Customs FTTTx 14-Feb-2017
(Vat – Assessments : Best Judgment) VALUE ADDED TAX – Takeaway business – Assessed as liable for registration but no longer liable – Assessment raised – Whether assessment to best judgment? – Yes – Whether assessment should be adjusted? – No – . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Taxes Management

Updated: 30 April 2022; Ref: scu.200236

Absolom v Talbot: 1943

Scott LJ said: ‘No judicial countenance can or ought to be given in matters of taxation to any system of extra-legal concessions.’

Judges:

Scott LJ

Citations:

[1943] 1 All ER 589

Cited by:

Cited – Regina on the Application of Wilkinson v The Commissioners of Inland Revenue CA 18-Jun-2003
The claimant had not received the same tax allowance following his wife’s death as would have been received by a woman surviving her husband. That law had been declared incompatible with Human Rtights law as discriminatory, but the respondent . .
Cited – Vestey v Inland Revenue Commissioners HL 1979
Taxes are imposed upon subjects by Parliament. A citizen cannot be taxed unless he is designated in clear terms by a taxing Act as a taxpayer and the amount of his liability is clearly defined. A proposition that whether a subject is to be taxed or . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Taxes Management

Updated: 29 April 2022; Ref: scu.184330

Regina v Barker: CCA 1941

In the course of investigating the defendant for tax faud, he was interviewed by the Inland Revenue. Relying upon a standard statement by the revenue, the appellant produced two ledgers which had been fraudulently prepared in order to induce the Revenue to believe that the irregularities amounted to only andpound;7,000.
Held: The statement by the Revenue, which reflected a statement in Parliament, was partly a promise or an inducement and that it was not admissible on a charge of conspiring to cheat the Revenue by producing false statements of account. It was held, that ‘those documents stand on precisely the same footing as an oral or written confession which is brought into existence as the result of such a promise, inducement or threat.’

Judges:

Tucker J

Citations:

[1941] 2 KB 381, [1941] 3 All ER 33

Cited by:

Not followed – Regina v Allen HL 11-Oct-2001
The defendant appealed against a finding that he had concealed an emolument, namely accommodation. He said that, as a shadow director of the company within the extended meaning of that phrase under the Act, the deeming provisions under Income Tax . .
Cited – Regina v Sewa Singh Gill and Paramjit Singh Gill CACD 31-Jul-2003
The appellants sought to challenge their convictions for cheating the Inland Revenue. They were accused of having hidden assets and income from the revenue. The appellants objected to the use at trial of material obtained in a ‘Hansard’ interview. . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Crime, Taxes Management

Updated: 29 April 2022; Ref: scu.183106

Inland Revenue Commissioners v Sema Group Pension Scheme Trustees: ChD 7 Feb 2002

The Trustees of an exempt approved pension scheme bought shares, and sold them at a lower price to the company. Under the 1988 Act, this operated to create a tax credit. The revenue issued a notice and assessment under Schedule F to defeat that tax credit. The trustees successfully appealed that to the Commissioners, and the Revenue appealed in turn.
Held: The sum received by the trustees was by way of an ‘abnormal dividend’ within section 704A. The condition of Part XVII were satisfied, and the revenue were right to treat it under tax-avoidance provisions. The notice and assessment were re-instated.

Judges:

Mr Justice Lightman

Citations:

Gazette 21-Mar-2002

Statutes:

Income and Corporation Taxes Act 1988 231(1) 704A Part XVII

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Cited by:

Appeal from – Inland Revenue Commissioners v Sema Group Pension Scheme Trustees CA 19-Dec-2002
The taxpayers appealed a notice under section 703(3) to counteract the tax advantage received by them from a share buy-back scheme. The scheme was an approved pension scheme, under which the quoted company agreed to buy back its own shares.
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Taxes Management

Updated: 28 April 2022; Ref: scu.168074

Regina v Inland Revenue Commissioners, Ex Parte Davis Frankel and Mead (A Firm): QBD 11 Jul 2000

The power of the Board of the Inland Revenue to issue notices requiring information was both draconian and intrusive. Nevertheless it was proper to issue a notice to a respectable firm of solicitors who had acted over the years for the tax payer under investigation, might well put a substantial burden upon them, but could nevertheless be delegated to a tax inspector acting as special compliance officer. The power to delegate was not limited by the later Act.

Citations:

Times 11-Jul-2000

Statutes:

Inland Revenue Regulation Act 1980 4(A), Finance Act 1976, Taxes Management Act 1970 20

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Taxes Management

Updated: 28 April 2022; Ref: scu.85323

Healthspan Ltd v Revenue and Customs: FTTTx 10 Dec 2018

Procedure : Other – reference to the CJEU – parties given the opportunity to comment in accordance with the Tribunal’s directions – Appellant failing to comply with directions – reference finalised and submitted – Appellant’s application that (a) the Tribunal ask the CJEU to return the reference and (b) the returned reference be amended to include changes proposed by the Appellant – application refused.

Citations:

[2018] UKFTT 711 (TC)

Links:

Bailii

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Taxes Management, European

Updated: 27 April 2022; Ref: scu.632449

Matthews v Revenue and Customs (Procedure : Hearings In Private): FTTTx 22 Aug 2018

PROCEDURE – strike out application – grounds of appeal are that HMRC are out of time to raise an assessment – whether no reasonable prospect of succeeding – similar case under appeal – strike out not allowed

Citations:

[2018] UKFTT 496 (TC)

Links:

Bailii

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Taxes Management

Updated: 27 April 2022; Ref: scu.632257

Gardner-Shaw UK Ltd and Others v Revenue and Customs (Procedure : Other): FTTTx 3 Aug 2018

PROCEDURE – application to vary directions while original directions under appeal in face of newly presented evidence – whether special circumstances – nature of relevant evidence in cases of ‘supervisory’ jurisdiction – application allowed

Citations:

[2018] UKFTT 432 (TC)

Links:

Bailii

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Taxes Management

Updated: 26 April 2022; Ref: scu.621427

Footlong Subs Ltd v Revenue and Customs: FTTTx 6 Jul 2018

Procedure : Other – – whether witness statement complied with rule 8(1) unless order – no – whether, if wrong on that, disclosure should be ordered – no – whether appeal should be struck out as lacking reasonable prospect of success – yes if not already struck out.

Citations:

[2018] UKFTT 367 (TC)

Links:

Bailii

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Taxes Management

Updated: 25 April 2022; Ref: scu.619371

Simply Construct (UK) Llp v Revenue and Customs: FTTTx 12 Jun 2018

Procedure : Expenses – whether the appellant acted unreasonably in bringing or conducting the proceedings – Tribunal Procedure (First-tier Tribunal) Tax Chamber Rules 2009, Rule 10(1)(b) – Yes – expenses awarded

Citations:

[2018] UKFTT 305 (TC)

Links:

Bailii

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Taxes Management

Updated: 25 April 2022; Ref: scu.619361

Rezaee v Revenue and Customs: FTTTx 11 Jun 2018

Procedure – power to review decision of Tribunal’s own motion where no application for permission to appeal made – review finding error of law in original decision – decision remade and original decision reversed – application for permission to appeal to HMRC out of time granted.

Citations:

[2018] UKFTT 302 (TC)

Links:

Bailii

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Taxes Management

Updated: 25 April 2022; Ref: scu.619358

Anderson v The Commissioners for Hm Revenue and Customs: UTTC 17 May 2018

INCOME TAX – discovery assessment – s 29 TMA – meaning of ‘discover’ – subjective and objective tests – whether Revenue officer believed that there had been an insufficiency of tax – whether officer merely had grounds for suspicion -whether it was open to officer to believe that there had been an insufficiency of tax – whether losses claimed to have arisen in a soccer academy trade were available for sideways loss relief – ss 64 and 72 ITA – whether taxpayer carried on a trade – whether on a commercial basis and with a view to or realistic expectation of profit – ss 66 and 74 ITA – whether tax-generated losses -s 74B ITA

Citations:

[2018] UKUT 159 (TCC)

Links:

Bailii

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Income Tax, Taxes Management

Updated: 22 April 2022; Ref: scu.616366