In Rebecca Louise Vowles v HMRC [2017] TC06123 the abused partner in a failed relationship was let off substantial tax on dividends and employment benefits and penalties on the basis that she had been acting only as a nominee director and had no beneficial entitlement to the income assessed by HMRC.
SME Tax News
In Noel Payne, Christopher Garbett, Coca-Cola European Partners Breat Britain Limited v HMRC [2017] TC06082 the FTT had to decide whether the VW Kombi and the Vauxhall Vivaro were cars or vans for the purpose of assessing employee benefits.
Update: on appeal in 2019, the Upper Tier tribunal confirmed this decision.
The Scottish Parliament has announced that its Draft Budget 2018/19 will be published on 14 December 2017.
The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) has instructed all solicitors to comply with the Code of Professional Conduct in Relation to Taxation jointly published by the accounting and tax bodies in March 2017.
In Vucicevic & Anor v Aleksic [2017] EWHC 2335 (Ch) the High Court upheld a homemade Will despite a number of areas where it lacked clarity and did not meet procedural requirements.
HMRC's estimates of the number of businesses who are able to submit their VAT returns directly by using third party software are inexact, but it seems that the vast majority (somewhere between 87-92% of businesses) submit their VAT via HMRC's portal. The main problem being difficult adjustments required and/or the need to combine data from several sources.
In Tabrez Akhtar t/a Crawley News and Post Office v HMRC [2017] TC6078 late filing penalties were dismissed: HMRC had unlogged a return in error.
In Darren Billington v HMRC [2017] TC06147 the FTT dismissed a late application to lodge an appeal against penalties raised for failure to act on an information notice: there was excessive delay and an insufficient excuse for the underlying failure.
In Whittaker v Concept Fiduciaries Ltd, Guernsey Judgment 15/2017, Guernsey’s Royal Court considered the UK rules on rectification of advisers' errors in setting up a trust.
Pilots working for Ryanair have been under tax enquiries from both the UK and German tax authorities.