| 1 | VAT: Retrospective VAT group registration: HMRC refusal The First-tier Tribunal has held that HM Revenue & Customs refused retrospective applications for VAT group registration on the basis of the wrong statutory provision. | Articles | 01-May-2013 |
| 2 | Corporation Tax: Partnership loss relief: research and ... The First-tier Tribunal has held that a partnership was only entitled to tax relief for part of its expenditure relating to research and development. | Articles | 27-Mar-2013 |
| 3 | Income Tax: Double taxation relief: no credit for taxes paid The Court of Appeal has held that a UK resident member of a Delaware LLC was not entitled to credit against his UK income tax liability for US taxes which he paid in respect of his share of the profits of the LLC. | Articles | 27-Mar-2013 |
| 4 | Income Tax: Self-assessment tax return: penalty for inaccuracy The First-tier Tribunal has held that HM Revenue & Customs should have suspended a penalty imposed for a careless inaccuracy in a self-assessment tax return where the taxpayer was willing to appoint a suitably qualified professional tax adviser to submit future tax returns on that taxpayer’s behalf. | Articles | 27-Mar-2013 |
| 5 | Legitimate expectation: First-tier Tribunal jurisdiction The Upper Tribunal has held that the First-tier Tribunal does not have jurisdiction to determine legitimate expectation arguments in relation to claims for input tax credit. | Articles | 27-Mar-2013 |
| 6 | Prudential decision and tax structuring: a cautionary tale The Supreme Court has confirmed that legal advice privilege only extends to legal advice given by qualified legal professionals and not to legal advice given by other professional advisers. The decision has particular relevance for tax structuring advice, which is mainly given by non-legal professionals and so may not be protected from disclosure. | Articles | 27-Mar-2013 |
| 7 | Income Tax: Discovery assessments The Upper Tribunal has held that HM Revenue & Customs is not entitled to issue a discovery assessment where an HMRC officer could reasonably have been expected to be aware of a potential under-assessment of tax. | Articles | 27-Feb-2013 |
| 8 | Income Tax: Tax relief for clawback of bonus The First-tier Tribunal has held that it is possible for an employee to get tax relief if he has to repay some (or all) of a bonus he had received. | Articles | 27-Feb-2013 |
| 9 | VAT: VAT refunds and VAT groups The First-tier Tribunal has held that a taxpayer’s claims for repayment of over-declared VAT in relation to output tax overpaid by its subsidiary when they were in the same VAT group were time-barred, as the taxpayer did not make the claims itself during the relevant period. | Articles | 27-Feb-2013 |
| 10 | Corporation Tax: Loan relationships: intra-group debt The Court of Appeal has upheld an Upper Tribunal decision that a debt owed to a subsidiary company by its ultimate parent company did not constitute a loan relationship. | Articles | 30-Jan-2013 |
| 11 | HMRC settlement opportunity HM Revenue & Customs will be contacting participants in certain tax avoidance schemes to offer them a settlement opportunity. | Articles | 30-Jan-2013 |
| 12 | Capital Gains Tax: Capital loss scheme fails on Ramsay ... The Upper Tribunal has held that gains and losses realised on futures contracts that were entered into on a one-off basis and for no commercial purpose were not of an income nature and, in any event, the contracts could be ignored on Ramsay grounds. | Articles | 28-Nov-2012 |
| 13 | Corporation Tax: Tax deduction allowed for penalty The First-tier Tribunal has held that a penalty imposed on a Formula 1 motor racing team by the sport’s governing body was deductible for corporation tax purposes. | Articles | 28-Nov-2012 |
| 14 | Income Tax: Penalties on late PAYE returns The Upper Tribunal has held that HM Revenue & Customs’ practice of waiting four months before issuing a late filing penalty notice did not breach its common law duty of fairness, and that the First-tier Tribunal has no judicial review or common law jurisdiction to set aside PAYE penalties on grounds of fairness. | Articles | 28-Nov-2012 |
| 15 | Tax disputes: revised code of governance HM Revenue & Customs has issued a revised version of the Code of Governance for Resolving Tax Disputes. | Articles | 28-Nov-2012 |
| 16 | Capital Gains Tax: Rollover relief: compensation or goodwill The Upper Tribunal has held that part of the sum received by a taxpayer on the transfer of its business was compensation for the early termination of car dealership rights, not goodwill, and was not eligible for capital gains tax roll-over relief. | Articles | 26-Sep-2012 |
| 17 | Corporation Tax: Deductibility of legal expenses The First-tier Tribunal has held that a UK company’s contribution to the legal expenses of an affiliated US company’s legal costs incurred defending a US prosecution were not incurred “wholly and exclusively for the purposes of the taxpayer’s trade” and were thus not deductible when calculating the corporation tax chargeable to the UK company. | Articles | 26-Sep-2012 |
| 18 | Income Tax: Double tax treaties: meaning of "subject to tax" The First-tier Tribunal has considered the meaning of “subject to tax” for the purposes of the UK/Israel double tax treaty. | Articles | 26-Sep-2012 |
| 19 | Income Tax: Relief for prepayments of interest The First-tier Tribunal has held that prepayments of interest were eligible for relief under section 353 of the Income and Corporation Taxes Act 1988, and that HM Revenue & Customs was bound by a settlement agreement in which it had agreed to allow such relief over a period of time. | Articles | 26-Sep-2012 |
| 20 | Capital Gains Tax: CGT loss scheme fails on Ramsay ... The Court of Appeal has held that four put and call options amounted to a single composite transaction by relying on the Ramsay principle. | Articles | 30-Aug-2012 |
| 21 | Corporation Tax: Close companies: loans to participators The First-tier Tribunal has held that a close company’s facility to employees to enable them to buy shares in the company, on terms that the amount was repayable only on certain events occurring, was a loan and a debt for the purposes of the rules on close company loans to participators, even though the agreement was expressed not to create a debt. | Articles | 30-Aug-2012 |
| 22 | Offshore capital gains: the charging net widens In March 2012, the Indian government announced that it was going to legislate to reverse the effect of the so-called Vodafone decision. Now that the Finance Bill 2012 in India has become law, it seems a good opportunity to look at the position on capital gains charges for offshore buyers and sellers of shares both in transactions involving Indian interests, and more widely. | Articles | 30-Aug-2012 |
| 23 | Capital Gains Tax: Tax relief for contingent liabilities on share ... The First-tier Tribunal has held that a sum paid to settle a claim for misrepresentation, in connection with the sale of shares, was a contingent liability within the meaning of section 49(2) of the Taxation of Chargeable Gains Act 1992. | Articles | 26-Jul-2012 |
| 24 | Corporation Tax: Intra-group interest strip scheme The First-tier Tribunal has held that the assignor’s accounting treatment of an intra-group assignment of an interest strip was not in accordance with generally accepted accounting practice, and that the interest received by the assignee was not taxable under the loan relationship rules. | Articles | 26-Jul-2012 |
| 25 | Income Tax: HMRC guidance: legitimate expectation The High Court has held that the taxpayer had a legitimate expectation that it would be taxed in accordance with a concession set out in HM Revenue & Customs’ published forms and guidance. | Articles | 28-Jun-2012 |
| 26 | Corporation Tax: Post-completion reallocation of group relief The Court of Appeal has held that the seller of a group of companies was not entitled, under the terms of the tax deed to which it was a party, to require the purchaser to arrange that certain surrenders for group relief be made. | Articles | 31-May-2012 |
| 27 | Income Tax: Accommodation expenses: deductibility The First-tier Tribunal has held that expenditure on accommodation for an actor working in London, but whose home was in Cheshire, was deductible as it was incurred wholly and exclusively for the purposes of his job. | Articles | 31-May-2012 |
| 28 | Income Tax: Relief on interest: partnership not trading The First-tier Tribunal has held that a film partnership that engaged in a film licence and sub-licence arrangement was not trading, and so the individual partners that invested in the partnership will not be entitled to tax relief on interest borrowed to invest in the partnership. | Articles | 31-May-2012 |
| 29 | Corporation Tax: Manufactured overseas dividends The Court of Appeal has held that certain manufactured payments represented manufactured overseas dividends in the hands of a UK resident company, even though the dividends had been paid out of share premium account, and so were deductible as management expenses. | Articles | 02-May-2012 |
| 30 | India and Vodafone: where now for offshore capital gains? The Indian government is seeking to introduce legislation to reverse the effect of the Indian Supreme Court’s decision in the Vodafone case by a imposing a retrospective tax charge on offshore sales of assets, which derived the majority of their value from Indian assets. | Articles | 02-May-2012 |
| 31 | Significant tax disputes: HMRC's approach HM Revenue & Customs has announced new governance arrangements for significant tax disputes, with the aim of providing greater transparency, scrutiny and accountability. | Articles | 29-Mar-2012 |
| 32 | VAT: Investment trusts: refund of VAT The High Court has held that investment trusts seeking a refund from HM Revenue & Customs of VAT charged to them on investment management services have no right of action under UK law, although there may be scope for a claim under EU law. | Articles | 29-Mar-2012 |
| 33 | Capital Gains Tax: Change of residence: need for settled ... The First-tier Tribunal has held that a taxpayer was liable to capital gains tax on the disposal of UK properties, despite having moved to live in France, as he had not adequately shown a settled intention to leave the UK and establish residence in France. | Articles | 25-Jan-2012 |
| 34 | Corporation Tax: Exclusivity payment held taxable as income The Upper Tribunal has held that a lump sum received by a company in return for entering into an exclusivity agreement was an income receipt and therefore subject to corporation tax as and when recognised in its accounts. | Articles | 25-Jan-2012 |
| 35 | Capital Gains Tax: Shares: negligible value The First-tier Tribunal has held that, for capital gains tax purposes, shares that do not have market value are of negligible value. | Articles | 01-Dec-2011 |
| 36 | Income Tax: Residence: judicial review The Supreme Court has held that the Inland Revenue’s guidance booklet on tax residence did not contain a more benevolent interpretation of the circumstances in which an individual is no longer resident in the UK, than that found in the legislation. | Articles | 01-Dec-2011 |
| 37 | Loss relief: film leasing partnership not trading The First-tier Tribunal has held that a film partnership that entered into a sale and leaseback of a film was not trading. | Articles | 01-Dec-2011 |
| 38 | Corporation Tax: Loan relationships: intra-group debt The Upper Tribunal has held that a debt owed to a subsidiary company by its ultimate parent company did not constitute a loan relationship, and that the group’s accounting entries alone were not adequate evidence of a lending transaction. | Articles | 28-Sep-2011 |
| 39 | VAT: Late payment surcharge: proportionality The First-tier Tribunal has held that a default penalty surcharge imposed by HM Revenue & Customs was proportionate in one case, but not in another, while following the same guidance in both cases. | Articles | 01-Sep-2011 |
| 40 | Waiver of privilege: giving away more than you bargained for It is well known that a party who chooses to waive legal professional privilege over selected documents may find that the waiver extends further than he intended. This is known as the principle of "collateral waiver" or, more colloquially, the cherry-picking rule. This article looks at some recent cases on when the principle comes into play and how widely it extends, and considers what lessons can be drawn from them. | Articles | 28-Jul-2011 |
| 41 | Corporation Tax: Tax avoidance and closure notices The Supreme Court has held that the reasons given by HM Revenue & Customs in closure notices do not restrict its ability to raise other arguments during an appeal and that a taxpayer partnership had not incurred capital expenditure for the purposes of the Capital Allowances Act 2001. | Articles | 30-Jun-2011 |
| 42 | Corporation Tax: Manufactured overseas dividends The Upper Tribunal has held that certain manufactured payments were overseas dividends in the hands of a UK resident company, even though paid out of share premium account, and so were deductible as management expenses. | Articles | 26-May-2011 |
| 43 | Vodafone's Indian tax controversy: a test case The Bombay High Court has recently held that there is sufficient nexus with India in the case involving Vodafone’s offshore acquisition, providing the tax authorities with the jurisdiction to tax Vodafone. The decision has caused some consternation for foreign investors in India. | Articles | 29-Sep-2010 |
| 44 | Income Tax: Reliance on HMRC website The First-tier Tribunal has held that a taxpayer has a reasonable excuse for filing a partnership self-assessment tax return late, where its agent has relied on a misleading statement on HM Revenue & Custom’s website. | Articles | 28-Apr-2010 |
| 45 | Time to pay arrangements HM Revenue & Customs has announced that businesses seeking time to pay arrangements on tax debts of £1 million or more under its Business Payment Support Service must now provide an independent business review in support of their request. | Articles | 28-Apr-2010 |
| 46 | Income Tax: Residence: dismissal of judicial review claims The Court of Appeal has dismissed judicial review claims that HM Revenue & Customs failed to interpret IR20 guidance correctly and unlawfully refused to apply it. | Articles | 24-Mar-2010 |
| 47 | Corporation Tax: Tax avoidance and closure notices The Court of Appeal has held that the reasons given in a closure notice do not restrict HM Revenue & Customs’ ability to raise other arguments during an appeal; and that a taxpayer partnership had incurred expenditure qualifying for capital allowances. | Articles | 24-Feb-2010 |
| 48 | Corporation Tax: Written off property expenditure: deductibility The First-tier Tribunal has held that a company was not entitled to a deduction for written-off expenditure on a residential property which was transferred to a director as a bonus, despite the company’s accounts correctly treating the property as a current asset and reflecting the write-off in the profit and loss account. | Articles | 24-Feb-2010 |
| 49 | HMRC investigations: is your company ready if the taxman ... This article explains how businesses should prepare for and handle a tax investigation and how to respond if faced with a dawn raid. | Articles | 24-Feb-2010 |
| 50 | Accountants and privilege: still out of the loop A recent High Court decision has dealt a blow to accountants’ hopes of putting their tax advice on a privileged footing with lawyers’ advice. | Articles | 28-Oct-2009 |
| 51 | VAT: Compound interest on VAT: claim in restitution The Upper Tribunal has held that taxpayers who wish to receive compound interest on VAT which was overpaid as a result of a breach by the UK of EC law must bring a claim in restitution. | Articles | 28-Oct-2009 |
| 52 | VAT: Recovery The First-Tier Tribunal has held that input VAT was not recoverable on construction of a building or installation of equipment in that building where a college had attempted to novate these contracts to its commercial wholly-owned subsidiary. | Articles | 01-Oct-2009 |
| 53 | Freedom of Information Act: business risk or opportunity? A consideration of the potential impact of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 on businesses. | Articles | 15-Nov-2004 |