Taxpayer took reasonable care on R&D relief claim: H&H Contract Scaffolding Ltd v HMRC [2024] UKFTT 151 (TC) (16 February 2024) is an interesting case about penalties. The taxpayer company’s claim for R&D relief was rejected by HMRC. The case gives no details about this because no appeal against the refusal was made. However the taxpayer did appeal against the penalty which HMRC had raised on the basis that the company had failed to take reasonable care when making the claim.
The FTT was very critical of HMRC’s approach to the penalty. In the first place it described HMRC’s statement of case as ‘a confused document’ which made reference wrongly to a test of reasonable excuse rather than one of taking reasonable care. It didn’t deal with the burden of proof correctly and most importantly argued that if there was a mistake the taxpayer...
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