The Authorities Behind the Guides
Our professional guides cite the same small group of authorities repeatedly, because those cases decide the questions that actually determine tax disputes: when HMRC can assess out of time, when a late appeal will be admitted, when a penalty can be resisted, when input tax can be denied, who has to prove what, and when a tribunal’s finding of fact can be challenged on appeal.
Each analysis sets out the facts, the procedural history, the statutory framework and the other authorities considered, and then separates what the court actually decided, the ratio decidendi, from what it said in passing. That distinction matters in argument: an obiter proposition can still be decisive, as Tooth shows, but it is deployed differently.
Discovery Assessments & Time Limits
Cenlon Finance Co Ltd v Ellwood [1962] AC 782
What a “discovery” is, and it needs no new fact. Also the settled-appeal protection that stops HMRC reopening an agreed point.
Read the analysis →Langham v Veltema [2004] EWCA Civ 193
The s29(5) protection: HMRC is shut out only where the taxpayer clearly alerted the officer to the insufficiency. The argument that survives now staleness has gone.
Read the analysis →HMRC v Charlton [2012] UKUT 770 (TCC)
A DOTAS scheme reference number on a return engages the s29(5) bar, still good law. Its staleness passage was disapproved in Tooth.
Read the analysis →HMRC v Tooth [2021] UKSC 17
A return must be read as a whole, including white space. “Deliberate inaccuracy” requires an intention to mislead. Obiter, the Court buried the staleness doctrine.
Read the analysis →Corbally-Stourton v HMRC (2008) Sp C 692
Where the staleness doctrine began: a discovery must be genuinely new. Now historical background rather than live authority, following Tooth’s obiter rejection of the doctrine.
Read the analysis →Penalties, Behaviour & Burden of Proof
HMRC v Khawaja [2013] UKUT 27 (TCC)
The civil standard applies to penalties however serious the allegation, plus the overlooked power to reflect unreasonable delay in the penalty.
Read the analysis →Ivey v Genting Casinos (UK) Ltd [2017] UKSC 67
The two-step test for dishonesty that replaced Ghosh. A taxpayer can no longer escape by pointing to their own moral standards.
Read the analysis →The Clean Car Co Ltd v Customs and Excise [1991] VATTR 234
The reasonable excuse formulation everyone quotes: an objective standard applied to a comparator with the real taxpayer’s attributes and situation.
Read the analysis →Manifest Shipping v Uni-Polaris (The Star Sea) [2001] UKHL 1
Blind-eye knowledge needs a targeted suspicion and a deliberate decision not to confirm it. Negligence, however gross, is not enough.
Read the analysis →Auxilium Project Management Ltd v HMRC [2016] UKFTT 249 (TC)
The most quoted definition of “deliberate” in the penalty code, from a decision that binds nobody. Knowledge of the error plus intention that HMRC rely on it.
Read the analysis →Perrin v HMRC [2018] UKUT 156 (TCC)
The four-stage reasonable excuse test, the objective-with-subjective-inputs standard, ignorance of the law, and the remedying requirement that defeated the appellant.
Read the analysis →Customs and Excise v Steptoe [1992] STC 757
A lack of funds is excluded by statute, but the tribunal may look at the underlying cause of it. The case that rescues the cash flow argument.
Read the analysis →Donaldson v HMRC [2016] EWCA Civ 761
The Schedule 55 daily penalty conditions, automated decisions, and how s114 TMA 1970 cures defects of form in a penalty notice.
Read the analysis →HMRC v Sintra Global Inc [2025] EWCA Civ 1661
Who proves the underlying liability when it is raised as a defence to a penalty? The taxpayer. Permission to appeal to the Supreme Court has been granted.
Read the analysis →CPR Commercials Ltd v HMRC [2023] UKUT 61 (TCC)
Recklessness is not deliberate. The Upper Tribunal draws a sharp line between serious carelessness and the subjective knowledge, or blind-eye knowledge, that deliberate inaccuracy actually requires.
Read the analysis →Outram v HMRC [2026] UKFTT 248 (TC)
A fresh 2026 application of the deliberate conduct test to a marketed avoidance scheme, and whether reliance on professional advice can still shield a participant from the 20-year window.
Read the analysis →Wals v HMRC [2025] UKFTT 1331 (TC)
No valid notice to file, no penalty. A fresh application of the Donaldson defence, and where reliance on an accountant as a reasonable excuse actually ends.
Read the analysis →VAT: Assessments, Fraud & Abuse
Totel Ltd v HMRC [2018] UKSC 44
Pay the VAT before you can appeal it. The prepayment rule survives an EU equivalence challenge, so the s84(3B) hardship application is the only way round it.
Read the analysis →Van Boeckel v Customs and Excise [1981] STC 290
What “best of their judgment” means: honesty, fair consideration of the material supplied, and a reasonable decision. Not accuracy, and not exhaustive investigation.
Read the analysis →Pegasus Birds Ltd v Customs and Excise [2004] EWCA Civ 1015
Carnwath LJ redirected best judgment appeals to the only question that matters: what is the correct amount of tax? Attacking the officer is usually the wrong battle.
Read the analysis →Kittel v Belgian State (C-439/04)
The knew-or-should-have-known principle behind every MTIC input tax denial, with Optigen, Halifax and the domestic Mobilx test.
Read the analysis →Mobilx Ltd v HMRC [2010] EWCA Civ 517
The Kittel test in English law. HMRC’s wider “means of knowledge” formulation rejected: fraud must be the only reasonable explanation.
Read the analysis →Wakefield College v HMRC [2018] EWCA Civ 952
The two-stage test for whether an activity is a VAT “business”. A subsidised college course was still an economic activity, and input tax recovery was restricted accordingly.
Read the analysis →Halifax plc v Customs and Excise Commissioners (C-255/02)
The foundational VAT abuse of rights test: a tax advantage contrary to the purpose of the provisions, plus an essential aim of securing it. Redefinition, not denial, is the remedy.
Read the analysis →Bachra v HMRC [2023] UKFTT 91 (TC)
A director’s Personal Liability Notice for MTIC input tax denial, and why the Kittel “should have known” test does not, by itself, establish the deliberate inaccuracy a PLN requires.
Read the analysis →Tribunal Procedure & Appeals
Cotter v HMRC [2013] UKSC 69
Whether a claim is “in” the return decides which enquiry power HMRC uses, and whether it can collect the tax while it investigates.
Read the analysis →HMRC v Tower MCashback LLP 1 [2011] UKSC 19
A closure notice fixes the subject matter of the appeal, not the arguments HMRC may run within it. Beat the stated reason and you have not necessarily won.
Read the analysis →Edwards v Bairstow [1956] AC 14
When a finding of fact becomes an error of law. Lord Radcliffe’s “true and only reasonable conclusion” test, and the narrow modern limits.
Read the analysis →Denton v TH White Ltd [2014] EWCA Civ 906
Not a tax case, but the source of the three-stage relief from sanctions test, including the majority direction on weight that the tribunals fought over until 2026.
Read the analysis →BPP Holdings Ltd v HMRC [2017] UKSC 55
HMRC barred from defending its own appeal for ignoring a direction. Tribunal practice on compliance should not be markedly more relaxed than the civil courts.
Read the analysis →Martland v HMRC [2018] UKUT 178 (TCC)
The three-stage test that governs every late appeal to the Tax Chamber, with the Court of Appeal’s restoration of the guidance in Medpro.
Read the analysis →HMRC v Katib [2019] UKUT 189 (TCC)
Your adviser’s failures are your failures. The attribution rule that defeats most late appeals founded on professional default.
Read the analysis →HMRC v Medpro Healthcare Ltd [2026] EWCA Civ 14
The Court of Appeal restores the Martland guidance on late appeals, correcting an Upper Tribunal drift towards excessive leniency for procedural default.
Read the analysis →Directors, Insolvency & Personal Liability
The Official Receiver v Norriss [2015] EWHC 2697 (Ch)
Does s236 reach a director abroad? The document production power does, on this authority, but the cases genuinely conflict.
Read the analysis →Holland v HMRC [2010] UKSC 51
HMRC tried to reach the man behind 42 companies and lost 3–2. Acting through a corporate director does not make you a director of the companies below.
Read the analysis →Re MC Bacon Ltd [1990] BCC 78
Granting security is not an undervalue, and a preference needs a subjective desire to prefer. The reason most claw-back claims fail.
Read the analysis →BTI 2014 LLC v Sequana SA [2022] UKSC 25
When directors must start thinking about creditors rather than shareholders. A real risk of insolvency is not enough, and a lawful dividend is not a safe harbour.
Read the analysis →Prest v Petrodel Resources Ltd [2013] UKSC 34
The veil-piercing case where the veil was not pierced. Evasion versus concealment, and how a resulting trust decided the case instead.
Read the analysis →Manson v Smith (Liquidator of Thomas Christy Ltd) [1997] 2 BCLC 161
A director cannot set off sums owed to them by the company against their own overdrawn loan account in a liquidator’s misfeasance claim. The no set-off rule that still governs DLA recovery.
Read the analysis →Toone v Robbins [2018] EWHC 569 (Ch)
Unlawful dividends paid without relevant accounts are recoverable from directors as knowing recipients, regardless of the company’s actual distributable reserves at the time.
Read the analysis →Burnden Holdings (UK) Ltd v Fielding [2018] UKSC 14
Directors as trustees of company property. Why a breach of duty claim against former directors can survive far longer than the ordinary six-year limitation period suggests.
Read the analysis →Employment Status
Stringfellow Restaurants Ltd v Quashie [2012] EWCA Civ 1735
Control was everywhere and it still was not employment, because the club never paid her, and on a quiet night she went home out of pocket.
Read the analysis →HMRC v BlueCrest Capital Management (UK) LLP [2026] UKSC 18
The salaried members rules. Significant influence means strategic influence over the whole firm, grounded in enforceable rights, not operational autonomy.
Read the analysis →PGMOL v HMRC [2024] UKSC 29
A right to cancel does not defeat mutuality; an absence of supervision does not defeat control. HMRC won both points and still lost on remittal.
Read the analysis →Kickabout Productions Ltd v HMRC [2022] EWCA Civ 502
The talkSPORT IR35 case. A minimum broadcast and retainer guarantee was sufficient mutuality of obligation, narrowing the role mutuality plays once any minimum commitment exists.
Read the analysis →Ready Mixed Concrete (South East) Ltd v Minister of Pensions and National Insurance [1968] 2 QB 497
The foundational test: personal service, mutuality of obligation, and control, all consistent with a contract of service. Still the starting point in every employment status dispute, IR35 included.
Read the analysis →HMRC v Atholl House Productions Ltd [2022] EWCA Civ 501
The Kaye Adams case. A three-stage structure for the hypothetical contract, and confirmation that mutuality and control create no presumption of employment on their own.
Read the analysis →Mainpay Ltd v HMRC [2025] EWCA Civ 1290
The umbrella company overarching contract question, s338 ITEPA temporary workplace relief, and HMRC's extended time limits for carelessness upheld.
Read the analysis →Disguised Remuneration & Employee Benefit Trusts
RFC 2012 plc v Advocate General for Scotland [2017] UKSC 45
The Rangers FC case. A unanimous Supreme Court held that redirecting earnings into an EBT loan structure does not stop them being earnings when paid.
Read the analysis →Hoey v HMRC [2022] EWCA Civ 656
HMRC's discretion to assess a contractor directly for disguised remuneration survives, no PAYE credit merely because HMRC could have pursued the offshore employer instead.
Read the analysis →Alternative Dispute Resolution
Churchill v Merthyr Tydfil CBC [2023] EWCA Civ 1416
The court can compel ADR after all. Halsey’s “no power to order mediation” passage demoted to obiter, and the October 2024 CPR amendments that followed.
Read the analysis →Privilege & Internal Investigations
Edem v Information Commissioner [2014] EWCA Civ 92
A name is personal data. The Durant biographical significance test was never a threshold, and controllers had been over-reading it for a decade.
Read the analysis →Dawson-Damer v Taylor Wessing LLP [2017] EWCA Civ 74
The three arguments used to resist a subject access request (privilege, disproportionate effort and improper motive) all reversed on appeal.
Read the analysis →Three Rivers DC v Bank of England (No 6) [2004] UKHL 48
Legal advice privilege covers advice on what should prudently be done in a relevant legal context, but the troublesome “client” ruling from No 5 was left standing.
Read the analysis →SFO v ENRC [2018] EWCA Civ 2006
Litigation privilege restored for internal investigations. Reasonable contemplation, dominant purpose, and material gathered to avoid rather than fight litigation.
Read the analysis →R (Prudential plc) v HMRC [2013] UKSC 1
The accountant problem. Legal advice privilege confined to the regulated legal profession, dismissed by a majority of 5 to 2.
Read the analysis →Limitation & Restitution Claims
Test Claimants in FII GLO v HMRC [2020] UKSC 47
When does a mistake-of-law tax claim run out of time? The discoverability test that overruled Deutsche Morgan Grenfell and curtailed decades of potential reach-back.
Read the analysis →Consumer Credit & Unfair Relationships
Office of Fair Trading v Lloyds TSB Bank plc [2007] UKHL 48
Section 75 has no territorial limit. UK card issuers are jointly liable with foreign suppliers, which is often the consumer’s only worthwhile claim.
Read the analysis →Durkin v DSG Retail Ltd [2014] UKSC 21
Reject the goods and the linked credit agreement falls with them. He won the principle and lost the £116,000.
Read the analysis →Steiner v National Westminster Bank plc [2022] EWHC 2519 (KB)
Route the card payment through a trustee rather than the supplier and the debtor-creditor-supplier link that s75 depends on is simply absent.
Read the analysis →Plevin v Paragon Personal Finance Ltd [2014] UKSC 61
Undisclosed commission made the relationship unfair under s140A CCA 1974, and the burden of proving a relationship was not unfair sits with the creditor.
Read the analysis →Professional Negligence
Hedley Byrne v Heller [1964] AC 465
The foundation of every claim against a negligent adviser. The special relationship test, and the disclaimer that meant the claimant who won the principle lost the case.
Read the analysis →Judicial Review & Public Law
R (Davies) v HMRC; R (Gaines-Cooper) v HMRC [2011] UKSC 47
The standard for a legitimate expectation from HMRC guidance: clear, unambiguous and devoid of relevant qualification, read as a whole.
Read the analysis →Oxfam v HMRC [2009] EWHC 3078 (Ch)
When the tribunal can hear a legitimate expectation argument, and the limits that mean it usually cannot.
Read the analysis →R v IRC, ex parte Preston [1985] AC 835
The taxpayer who established unfairness as a ground of judicial review of HMRC, then lost his own case on the facts. Still the starting point for every legitimate expectation argument.
Read the analysis →R (Rowe and others) v HMRC [2017] EWCA Civ 2105
The Accelerated Payment Notice regime survives judicial review. No breach of natural justice, no unlawful retrospection, and no legitimate expectation defeats a validly issued APN.
Read the analysis →Tax Avoidance, GAAR & Statutory Construction
MacNiven v Westmoreland Investments Ltd [2001] UKHL 6
Where Ramsay was first reframed as construction, and where the commercial versus juristic gloss was born, only to be discarded in BMBF.
Read the analysis →UBS AG v HMRC [2016] UKSC 13
When purposive construction actually defeats a scheme: a condition inserted solely to engage a relief, with no commercial function, does not answer the statutory description.
Read the analysis →WT Ramsay Ltd v IRC [1982] AC 300
Where it all began. A self-cancelling scheme viewed as a composite whole, and the origin of every purposive construction argument that followed.
Read the analysis →Furniss v Dawson [1984] AC 474
Ramsay extended: a pre-ordained series of transactions with no commercial purpose beyond tax avoidance is taxed on its end result, no self-cancellation required.
Read the analysis →Craven v White [1989] AC 398
A narrow 3–2 majority pulls back the Furniss doctrine: no pre-ordination where the ultimate transaction was still genuinely uncertain when the first step was taken.
Read the analysis →Barclays Mercantile Business Finance Ltd v Mawson [2004] UKHL 51
The Ramsay principle restated as ordinary purposive construction, not a special doctrine. A circular financing arrangement did not defeat a genuine capital allowances claim.
Read the analysis →Hurstwood Properties (A) Ltd v Rossendale BC [2021] UKSC 16
Ramsay outside tax. Purposive construction defeats an empty-property business rates SPV scheme, and corporate veil-piercing is declined as the analytical route.
Read the analysis →Trading vs Investment: Badges of Trade
Goodwin v Curtis [1998] STC 475
Occupation is not residence. Private residence relief turns on quality of occupation, a settled abode, not temporary accommodation.
Read the analysis →Marson v Morton [1986] STC 463
The nine badges of trade. A quick, profitable land sale was held to be capital, not trading income, the checklist every “was it trade?” argument still runs through.
Read the analysis →Statutory Residence & International
HMRC v A Taxpayer [2023] UKUT 182 (TCC)
Five extra days, £3.1 million at stake. A moral obligation to care for a relative during Covid-19 was not an exceptional circumstance beyond the taxpayer's control.
Read the analysis →Facing an HMRC dispute?
Our team includes former HMRC investigators with direct experience of discovery assessments, penalty appeals, VAT fraud denials, director liability claims and First-tier Tribunal litigation.