City Blinds Scotland Limited v The Commissioners for HMRC
Decision date: 11 September 2025
Neutral citation: [2025] UKFTT 1100 (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
This appeal concerned HMRC assessments that City Blinds had overclaimed under the CJRS; after ADR HMRC recalculated entitlement and issued a post‑ADR assessment of £12,073.51 which the Tribunal confirmed. The key issues were the lawfulness of HMRC's calculation method (including converting annual/reference pay to a daily rate by dividing by 7), whether underclaims in other periods could be offset against overclaims, and whether public‑law arguments could be entertained. The Tribunal held HMRC's methodology and officer belief met the required tests, refused cross‑period offsetting, amended the assessment to the post‑ADR figure 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
From the judgment as recorded in the notes: where a Direction refers to annual or salary periods without defining pro‑rata days, deriving a daily rate by using a 7‑day week can be an appropriate method of calculating entitlement; and for Schedule 16/paragraph 9 assessments an assessing officer must have a genuine subjective belief and that belief must also be one which a reasonable officer could form (subjective and objective tests).
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 the Direction is sparse on fixed‑rate reference salary conversion and described mathematical conversion to a daily rate as an equitable device where pay and claim periods do not align. It also observed that perceived harshness in Directions' time limits or amendment rules is a matter for Parliament, and reiterated that the First‑tier Tribunal lacks general supervisory/judicial‑review jurisdiction to decide legitimate expectation complaints about HMRC conduct in this context.
Warning
Chunk contains repeated passages and formatting artefacts; care taken to judgment the tribunal's findings without relying on duplicated text. Notes include repeated passages and formatting artefacts; they may be materially incomplete.