In Asset House Piccadilly Ltd v HMRC [2023] UKFTT 279 (TC) (10 March 2023) the FTT held that two HMRC officers conducting litigation were not barred from proceedings under the Legal Services Act 2007 (LSA 2007) on the basis they were not solicitors.
HMRC had issued information notices relating to enquiries into certain corporation tax returns of the taxpayer and also relating to HMRC’s suspicions that the taxpayer was an ‘enabler’ of what were alleged to be abusive tax arrangements. The taxpayer made strike-out applications in two appeals against the information notices.
Neither of the HMRC litigators who had conduct of the appeals were solicitors and nor were they supervised by a solicitor. The strike-out applications argued that this meant they were in breach of LSA 2007 s 14(1) in that they were carrying on a reserved legal activity namely the conduct of litigation before the tribunal....
