It is never wise to ignore the taxman. If you do then they have substantial powers to determine the amount of tax that is owed and to pursue it. Those powers, however, are not unlimited and this was illustrated in a recent case that was appealed by the taxpayer to the First Tier Tribunal (“FTT”).
It appears that HMRC received information from World Pay that the taxpayer, Cussons (“C”) had received payments in respect of the buying and selling of used cars. They approached C about this but he failed to reply to HMRC both at the start of the enquiry and at every stage thereafter. Therefore, HMRC were compelled to use “best judgements” to arrive at the tax due from the limited information available to them. They issued determinations for the years 2004/5 to 2015/16 which totalled a staggering £342,943.11 in tax and penalties. This was based on receipts for 2015/16 from which they deducted 50% in expenses. This “profit” was then worked back over the previous 11 years using the Retail Prices Index to allow for inflation.
Not surprisingly, this caused C to lift his head from out of the sand and to appeal the determinations to the FTT. At that appeal he stated that he was in receipt of enhanced employment and support allowance, which is paid to people unable to work due to physical or mental impairments, and had no income that took him above the personal allowance. At the hearing C was accompanied by his 81 year old father who stated both that the vehicles were actually traded through his company and that the average profit was £200 per vehicle.
In cases such as this the FTT must follow a two-stage process. Firstly, did HMRC use their best judgement in making their assessments based on the information available. If not, the assessments fail. If (and only if) they did does the FTT then consider whether the assessments should be reduced on the basis of any additional evidence available. In doing so, the FTT must assume as its starting point that HMRC made an honest and genuine attempt to arrive at a fair assessment. Also, it is not sufficient for the FTT to disagree with HMRC’s conclusions. They can only overturn the assessments if those conclusions are unreasonable.
In this instance the taxpayer was lucky. The FTT agreed with the taxpayer that it was unreasonable for HMRC to use a 50% profit margin which seemed to be a figure “just plucked from the air” and seemed to be designed to frighten the taxpayer into providing the information requested. The assessments therefore failed and were overturned. They added that it was not their duty to rework the assessment but said that HMRC could start again if they wished based on the additional information now available.
No doubt HMRC will learn their own lessons from this case. From the perspective of taxpayers the lesson to be learnt is simple. They should not bury heads in sand but should cooperate at all times with HMRC in arriving at a fair result.
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