Dean Nightingale v Commissioners for Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs

Decision date: 21 June 2011

Neutral citation: [2011] UKFTT 400 (TC)

Overall AI summary confidence: high

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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: high

This appeal concerned a £120.58 default surcharge for late payment of 2008–09 income tax after the appellant filed online. The appellant argued the online filing system misleadingly allowed selection of PAYE-code collection and so provided a reasonable excuse for late payment; HMRC contemporaneous notes recorded a 2 February 2010 call about a time-to-pay arrangement. The Tribunal found as fact that by 2 February the appellant knew the tax would not be collected via PAYE and he failed to pay by 28 February, so there was no reasonable excuse and the surcharge was confirmed.

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

A potentially confusing online filing option can, in principle, amount to a reasonable excuse, but contemporaneous evidence (such as HMRC records of a telephone call about arranging payment) may rebut a claim of confusion by showing the taxpayer knew a payment was due and was required to pay by the deadline.

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 noted (non-decisively) that HMRC’s unexplained submission about which box was ticked on the return was unintelligible and expressed regret that HMRC systems can give the appearance of offering facilities that are not actually available.

Warning

- The chunk contains duplicated passages (repetition of the same material). Notes contain duplicated passages and may be noisy.

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