A Revell v HMRC

In A Revell v HMRC [2016] UKFTT 97 (16 February 2016) the FTT found that an enquiry into an unsolicited return was not valid.

Mr Revell was appealing against a closure notice of an enquiry into a return on the ground that HMRC had not validly opened an enquiry in circumstances where no valid request to file a return had been made (TMA 1970 ss 8 and 9).

The FTT found that the request to deliver a return had not been served as it had been sent to the wrong address HMRC having received a more up to date address in form P60.

HMRC observed that it received approximately 350 000 unsolicited returns a year and that its practice was to treat such returns as if they had been made in response to a notice to make a return. The FTT found however that there was...