In Embiricos v HMRC the Court of Appeal has provided clear guidance on the circumstances in which a partial closure notice can be issued by HMRC to bring finality to a discrete aspect of an enquiry.  Although the decision was concerned with a dispute regarding domicile status, it has broad application and is therefore essential reading for those tasked with handling an HMRC enquiry. Read more

In Tinkler v HMRC [2021] UKSC 39, HMRC had not validly served a notice of enquiry on the taxpayer. However, the Supreme Court held that the taxpayer was prevented from relying on this fact (in order to dispose of a tax dispute) as a result of the operation of the doctrine of estoppel by convention. This was principally because the taxpayer and his advisers had, for a long period of time, corresponded with HMRC on the assumption that the notice of enquiry had been validly issued. Read more

In R (Haworth) v HMRC, the Supreme Court has provided welcome guidance in relation to the follower notice regime, confirming that a notice may be issued only where HMRC believes that there is "no scope for a reasonable person to disagree that the earlier ruling denies the taxpayer the [relevant tax] advantage".  It presents HMRC with a high bar, but one that is justified given the draconian nature of the regime. Read more

In a decision restoring common sense, the Supreme Court in HMRC v Tooth has determined that for conduct to be culpable as deliberate there must (generally) be an "intention to mislead".  Less encouragingly (though not determinative in the case) the Court was not persuaded that a discovery could become stale, thereby preventing an otherwise "in time" discovery assessment from being made, for the purposes of the statutory framework relating to such assessments. Read more

In this article, we consider a recent case which is of considerable interest to tax practitioners given its focus on the income tax consequences of correcting mistakes in bilateral contracts. Read more

In Mackay v Wesley [2020] EWHC 1215 (Ch), the Claimant, who was instructed by her father to become a trustee of a family trust as part of a tax scheme, failed to obtain from the High Court (1) an order rescinding her appointment as trustee and/or (2) a declaration that she never became a trustee. Read more

In Fowler v HMRC [2020] UKSC 22, the Supreme Court determined that a statutory fiction created by a deeming provision of UK tax law did not affect how the terms of a bilateral tax treaty should be applied. Read more

We asked trust companies questions about the most significant risk and compliance issues they face. This blogpost, and accompanying podcast, consider the tax issues identified by respondents as most pressing. Read more