Upper Tribunal Tax and Chancery Chamber

UT/2023/000068 - [2024] UKUT 00262 (TCC)

Fecha: 25-Abr-2024

Factor (8)

Factor (8)

85.

This factor was set out at FTT[134(8)]:

(8)

Outside his Sky commitments, Mr Barnes was in business on his own account. The 31 articles published during the 2015 World Cup illustrate the competitiveness of the field to maintain parity as a sought-after sport pundit. Other expert voices were called on to give coverage of the tournament, each jostling for a unique angle to sum up a match, for insightful comments on a player or a team that would prove to be prophetic.

86.

Mr Stone challenged the basis for the FTT’s finding that Mr Barnes was in business on his own account outside his contract with Sky, because, he said, the 31 articles were an insufficient evidential basis for that finding.

87.

Properly understood, HMRC’s challenge to Factor (8) is not that as matter of principle being in business on own account cannot be a factor pointing away from employment, but rather it is a disguised Edwards v Bairstow challenge to the rationality of the finding. It was a finding clearly made by the FTT, and repeated at FTT[136]. It was, in any event, not a finding based solely on the 31 articles (which the FTT described as illustrative of the competitiveness of the world of punditry) but on all the evidence and arguments referred to throughout the Decision.

88.

This was clearly a relevant factor at the Third RMC Stage.