Root 2 Tax Ltd v HMRC

Our pick of this week's cases

In Root 2 Tax Ltd v HMRC [2019] UKFTT 744 (TC) (10 December 2019) the First-tier Tribunal (FTT) held that payments made under spread-betting contracts and associated hedging options gave rise to earnings from employment.

Three individuals were the sole directors and shareholders of the company which traded as tax consultants. It marketed a scheme known as ‘Alchemy’ to its clients and in 2012 and subsequent years each of the three individuals repeatedly entered into the scheme themselves. Under the scheme the individual entered into two transactions with a financial bookmaker Heronden. The first transaction (the ‘bet’) was a spread bet contract which depended on the growth of a reference index consisting of a basket of five hedge funds. The second transaction was a related call spread option (CSO) based on the same basket. Under each pair of transactions...