TC09548 - [2025] UKFTT 00700 (TC)

The PTA Application started from the position that, because the Appellant said in its Grounds of Appeal that the Determinations were “incorrect in both fact and law”, this was the case to which HMRC had to respond, and they had complied with that obligation.

I disagree. As the UT said in Kingston Maurward at [13], how HMRC is required to comply with its obligation under Rule 25 and “the particular level of detail which will be sufficient to enable an appellant to properly prepare, will depend on the circumstances of the particular appeal”. As already set out earlier in this PTA Decision, the Appellant was unable to provide more detailed grounds because HMRC had given no reasons at all for the Determinations.

Moreover, HMRC assume that the starting point for a tax appeal is the grounds submitted by an appellant, read in isolation from the decision being appealed. That is not correct, as can be seen from the TMA, from the case law and from HMRC’s duty to give reasons. I explain the position in the next following paragraphs