Hankinson v HMRC

In Hankinson v HMRC (CA – 16 December) HMRC had issued a ‘discovery’ assessment charging CGT on a company director who had signed a tax return stating that he was ‘employed abroad under a full-time working contract of employment’. The First-tier Tribunal upheld the assessment finding that despite the statement in his return H had spent less than half the year in the Netherlands and that as a matter of law he had remained resident in the UK. The Tribunal also held that there had been a ‘discovery’ and that H’s conduct in signing the return amounted to ‘negligent conduct’ within TMA 1970 s 29(4). The Upper Tribunal and the CA unanimously upheld this decision. Lewison LJ held that the Tribunal had been entitled to find that the conditions of s 29 were satisfied and that ‘whether either or both...