UT (Tax & Chancery) UT/2023/00099 - [2025] UKUT 00013 (TCC)

Mr Watkinson, on behalf of HMRC, submitted that the FTT did not err when it held that the FTT Grounds did not include, as one of the grounds, that the Appellant held valid VAT invoices at the time of HMRC’s decision.

He said that the purpose of pleadings is to mark out the parameters of the case advanced and identify the issues and extent of the dispute between the parties with sufficient clarity. It was manifestly insufficient simply to assert as a ground of appeal that “my claim for input tax was valid” without explaining why. If the Appellant had meant to appeal on the basis that it held valid VAT invoices, it both would and should have said so; instead, such a ground was conspicuous by its absence, and the FTT did not have to dig behind the FTT Grounds, which were never amended, to try to catch some faint echo of a ground that had obviously not been pleaded.

He went on to say that the wording of the FTT Grounds further supported that conclusion. If the Appellant had sought to rely on the invoices, there would have been no need to include the detailed points in paragraph 7, namely that the Appellant held evidence that its supply chain was valid and that it had correctly been charged VAT by its suppliers. If the Appellant had asserted that it held the relevant invoices, almost the entirety of the FTT Grounds would be otiose.

Mr Watkinson also argued that the context of what led up to the decision, including that referred to by the FTT at [42], reinforced the FTT’s conclusion. In his submission, the FTT was correct, for the reasons it gave at [40]-[45], to conclude that the FTT Grounds were entirely predicated on the absence of such invoices. The FTT was therefore entitled to reach the conclusion that it did on the evidence before it and as a matter of construction of the FTT Grounds.

We begin by making some overall points about drafting and construing grounds of appeal.