TC09552 - [2025] UKFTT 00704 (TC)

This is the appellant’s appeal against assessments to income tax dated 15 September 2022 in the total sum of £28,769.85 for the tax years ending 5 April 2021and 2022. They were issued pursuant to paragraph 9 of Schedule 16 to the Finance Act 2020 (“FA 20”).

HMRC request that the Tribunal exercise their power under section 50(6) of the Taxes Management Act 1970 (“TMA”) to decrease the assessment relating to the accounting period ending (“APE”) 31 August 2020 to £8,630.68 and in respect of the assessments for the two APEs 31 August 2021 to increase those to £19,654.95 in terms of section 50(7) TMA. The precise quantum is as set out in the Appendix to HMRC’s Statement of Case.

Under the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (“CJRS”), the appellant had claimed and received CJRS Support Payments or grants in relation to three employees (“the Employees”)

Employers could only claim grant payments for furloughed employees for whom HMRC had received PAYE Real Time Information (“RTI”) in the form of a Full Payment Submission (“FPS”) by specific dates. In summary, for CJRS grants covering periods up to 31 October 2020 the RTI FPS had to be received by 19 March 2020, disclosing the employees’ 2019/20 pay from the employer. For grants covering periods from 1 November 2020 to 30 April 2021 employees must have been included in the RTI FPS submission received by 31 October 2020.

HMRC claimed that the failure to include the Employees in the RTI returns on or before 19 March and 30 October 2020 meant that the Support Payments did not qualify under the CJRS and therefore they issued the assessments to claw back the overpayments.

With the consent of the parties, the hearing was conducted by video link using TEAMS. Prior notice of the hearing had been published on the gov.uk website, with information about how representatives of the media or members of the public could apply to join the hearing remotely in order to observe the proceedings. As such, the hearing was held in public.

The documents to which we were referred comprised a Documents Bundle consisting of 568 pages and a Supplementary Authorities Bundle extending to 215 pages. We had Skeleton Arguments for both parties.

In the course of the hearing Mr Chapman lodged a two page letter from one of the Employees, Amy, who attended the hearing and briefly gave evidence about the letter. He later lodged:

We heard evidence from both Mr Chapman and Officer Donaldson.

For the reasons set out below, we dismiss the appeals and vary the assessments as indicated in paragraph 2 above.