Hearthstead Homes v Commissioners for Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs

Decision date: 9 June 2011

Neutral citation: [2011] UKFTT 382 (TC)

Overall AI summary confidence: medium

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Short overview

This short overview is intended to summarise the case, issues and outcome so far as they are supported by the judgment.

AI confidence in this short overview: medium

This appeal concerned penalties for late filing of a 2008/2009 partnership tax return. The taxpayers (Mr and Mrs Ali, per the notes) argued they had a reasonable excuse because the related company had gone into administration and they assumed the administrators would file the return, and they also relied on incorrect HMRC telephone advice; the Tribunal held those matters did not provide a continuing reasonable excuse and dismissed the appeal.

Ratio decidendi

This summary is intended to identify the ratio decidendi, meaning the legal reasons for deciding and the binding part of the decision.

AI confidence in this ratio decidendi summary: medium

The Tribunal held that a taxpayer’s mistaken assumption that a third party (here, company administrators) will file a return does not amount to a reasonable excuse, and that reliance on incorrect HMRC advice may be relevant but will only excuse lateness if the reasonable excuse continued for the whole period of default.

Obiter dicta

This summary is intended to identify obiter dicta, meaning observations made by the way that were not necessary to deciding the case and are not binding.

AI confidence in this obiter dicta summary: medium

The Tribunal remarked that it was regrettable that HMRC imposed further penalties shortly after giving incorrect telephone assurance, and noted that confusion between different types of returns (personal vs partnership) can lead to misleading assurances from HMRC; these comments appear to be obiter.

Warning

This chunk contains duplicated text (repetition of the same passages). Notes contain duplicated text and appear to refer to Mr and Mrs Ali rather than the case title provided, so they may be incomplete or inconsistent with the cited case heading.

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