Victor Michael v The Commissioners for HMRC
Decision date: 9 January 2026
Neutral citation: [2026] UKFTT 96 (TC)
Overall AI summary confidence: high
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 by Victor Michael challenged HMRC closure notices disallowing most travel and other expenses for 2021/22 and 2022/23. The FTT found he worked for NHS Professionals at Southport hospital as an agency worker, that Southport was his permanent workplace because it was the sole site attended for the relevant periods, and that travel and most non-travel expenses were not deductible under ITEPA; the appeal was dismissed and the closure notices upheld.
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: high
The Tribunal treated attendance at a single site for all or almost all of an employee’s periods of work as indicating that site is a permanent workplace for the purposes of sections 338–339 ITEPA, so travel to it is ordinary commuting and not deductible; and it applied the strict section 336 ITEPA test for non-travel expenses, requiring that such expenses be incurred wholly, exclusively and necessarily in the performance of duties, which ordinary living costs (food, clothes, etc.) do not meet.
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 observed that section 336 operates rigidly and that reliance on HMRC’s different treatment of an earlier tax year raises public law/legitimate expectation issues which the Tribunal declined to consider as outside its remit. No other clear obiter dicta are identifiable from the notes.