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HMRC’S APPEAL AGAINST THE FTT 2023 DECISION
HMRC’S APPEAL AGAINST THE FTT 2023 DECISION
HMRC submitted that the FTT had made two separate errors of law in making the FTT 2023 decision.
The first alleged error of law was that the FTT had erred in its approach to the analysis of the evidence. The FTT ought, in HMRC’s view, to have placed weight on its finding in the FTT 2021 decision that there was illicit activity in the supply chain (see [91]) and considered all of the other evidence in the light of that critical finding. And, by placing any weight on the documentation, the FTT had further erred. That was because:
Zamco Ltd’s involvement in covering up illicit activities tainted the veracity of the documentation;
the FTT was wrong to accept the provenance of documentation in respect of Zamco Ltd’s relationship with third party entities; and
“having found that Mr Zaman was not truthful” (in the words of HMRC’s skeleton argument), the FTT failed to appreciate that there was no other reliable or credible evidence which either corroborated Mr Zaman’s evidence or which was able to support what the FTT ultimately thought to be more likely than not.
This led to what HMRC say was the second error of law. If the FTT had correctly analysed the documentation in the light of the fact that it was part of illicit activities, then, the FTT ought to have: (1) placed no weight on the documentation; and (2) concluded that Mr Zaman had not discharged the burden of proof.