TC09617 - [2025] UKFTT 01018 (TC)

Fecha: 13-Jun-2025

These were appeals against HMRC’s

(1)

assessments denying input tax of £1,299,083.69 claimed by the appellant (“Deos”) in the 04/22 and 05/22 VAT monthly accounting periods. HMRC’s grounds for the input tax denial were that the 18 purchases (the “purchases”) on which the input tax was incurred were connected with the fraudulent evasion of VAT and Deos either knew, or should have known, this. HMRC’s assessments were notified to Deos in letters of 16 December 2022 and 24 January 2023; and

(2)

penalty assessment pursuant to section 69C Value Added Tax Act 1994 in the sum of £364,220.64.

Heading
These were appeals against HMRC’s
The issues for the Tribunal
Evidence
FINDINGS OF FACT
The supply chain in relation to the purchases
Deos and its business
Spring 2021: Deos starts buying and selling, wholesale, electronic consumer goods like Apple AirPods
August 2021: Deos starts buying from Estanza
Deos’ pattern of trading with Estanza
Examples showing commercial risks taken by Deos in its trading pattern with Estanza
The break in Deos’ trading with Estanza in December 2021-February 2022
Things said about VAT fraud in Mr Smith’s WhatsApp messaging with his contact at RCS Holland BV
Deos and RC
Deos’ interactions with HMRC concerning VAT fraud
Estanza’s VAT deregistration and reregistration
SUMMARY OF RELEVANT LAW
Mobilx
Other authorities on Kittel principles
HMRC’s pleadings
THE PARTIES’ CASES
Deos’ general awareness of MTIC fraud
The suspiciousness of the market in which Deos was dealing
Inadequacy of Deos’ due diligence and of its “break” in trading with Estanza in December 2021-February 2022
The unlikelihood of coincidence that so many of Deos’ transactions should have traced to fraudulent tax losses
Other points
HMRC’s concluding submissions
Deos’ case on its state of knowledge
Deos’ procedural arguments (and HMRC’s response)
were not mentioned in HMRC’s statement of case, and so should not be considered by the Tribunal, in keeping with the principle in E Buyer of HMRC having to give properly informative particulars of the
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS
Stage 1: persuasive direct evidence of knowledge on the part of Mr Smith?
Stage 2: were the circumstances of the purchases sufficiently suspicious so as to draw an inference of knowledge (of connection with VAT fraud) on the part of Mr Smith/Deos?
Stage 3: were the circumstances of the purchases sufficiently suspicious that a reasonable businessperson would have known that they were connected with fraudulent VAT evasion; put differently, was th
Conclusions