Milton Keynes Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust v The Commissioners for HMRC
Decision date: 21 November 2024
Neutral citation: [2024] UKFTT 1046 (TC)
Overall AI summary confidence: medium
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
Milton Keynes Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust applied for specific disclosure of internal HMRC policy rulings in a VAT appeal about a s.73 assessment (originally £114,988 reduced to £13,289.25). The First-tier Tribunal refused the disclosure application, holding the appellant had not shown the documents were relevant or reasonably likely to assist the tribunal, and that ordering disclosure would be disproportionate given confidentiality concerns, taxpayer‑specificity, possible non‑existence of records and the small sum at issue.
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 applied the principle that specific disclosure should be ordered only where the applicant proves the documents are reasonably likely to resolve an area of uncertainty and enable a fair determination; unpublished, taxpayer‑specific internal advice or policy rulings are not generally admissible to determine statutory purpose and may be excluded on relevance, confidentiality and proportionality grounds. The burden of proving the need for specific disclosure lies on the applicant.
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 specific advice to individual taxpayers can be relevant where a taxpayer properly pleads unreasonable conduct by HMRC or a legitimate expectation arising from HMRC communications, but noted that no such case was pleaded here. It also indicated that proportionality in disclosure requests must weigh the amount at stake against the public burden of retrieving confidential records.
Warning
The chunk contains significant repetition and duplicated passages which made extraction of a single narrative more difficult. The provided notes contain significant repetition and duplicated passages; they may be incomplete or noisy.