J Hargreaves v HMRC

In J Hargreaves v HMRC [2022] UKUT 34 (TCC) (11 February 2022) the UT allowed HMRC’s appeal to make a discovery assessment under TMA 1970 s 29 despite the FTT previous ruling that the assessment was invalid on staleness grounds.

This concerned the issue of discovery assessments for income tax and CGT. The taxpayer had been successful at the First-tier Tribunal on the issue of staleness. Following the Supreme Court decision in Tooth in 2021 effectively abolishing staleness as a concept HMRC were always going to win their appeal on that issue and indeed the taxpayer did not contest this. However in case it was wrong on the staleness point the FTT had considered other issues and concluded that it would have found for HMRC on those issues. The taxpayer now appealed those conclusions to the Upper Tribunal but he was unsuccessful.

The matter...