Upper Tribunal Tax and Chancery Chamber

UT (Tax & Chancery) UT/2023/000103 - [2025] UKUT 00102 (TCC)

Fecha: 22-Ene-2025

The assessments

The assessments

87.

HMRC made the following assessments on the Employers:

(1)

To Prisym on 2 October 2013, on the basis that the sum it had received from its SSAS of £300,000 for the sale of its software was an unauthorised payment subject to an unauthorised payments charge of 40% and a surcharge of 15%, so a total of £165,000.

(2)

To Formwise on 15 November 2013, on the basis that it had received a sum estimated at £166,750 from its SSAS, which was an unauthorised payment subject to an unauthorised payments charge of 40% and a surcharge of 15%, so a total of £91,712.50.

(3)

To Langford on 18 March 2015, on the basis that the loan it had received from its SSAS of £69,000 was an unauthorised payment subject to the unauthorised payments charge of 40% and a surcharge of 15%, so a total of £37,950.

(4)

To Fraser, on 11 August 2016, on the basis that the loan it had received from its SSAS of £23,000 was an unauthorised payment subject to the unauthorised payments charge of 40% and a surcharge of 15%, so a total of £12,650.

(5)

To Ballards on 12 August 2015, on the basis that the loan it had received from its SSAS of £48,856 was an unauthorised payment subject to the unauthorised payments charge of 40% and a surcharge of 15%, so a total of £26,926.95.

(6)

To Criticall on 26 September 2016, on the basis that the payment it had received from its SSAS of £110,000 for the sale of its software was an unauthorised payment subject to the unauthorised payments charge of 40% and a surcharge of 15%, so a total of £60,500.

(7)

To Gannon on 31 August 2016, on the basis that the payment of £25,000 it had received from its SSAS for the sale of its IP was an unauthorised payment subject to the unauthorised payments charge of 40% and a surcharge of 15%, so a total of £13,750.

88.

HMRC assessed MLT to the related scheme sanction charges under s 239, and MLT applied to be discharged under s 268(7) for all of the Employers except Fraser. We return to the discharge applications at Grounds 7 and 8.

89.

We considered whether the FTT had made a finding of fact that at some subsequent point the Employers repaid the Pension Funding Deals in full. The FTT recorded at [216] that the Appellants had placed reliance on “the fact that all of the Employers had repaid the Pension Funding Deals in full”. However, at [222] the FTT says (our emphasis) “if each of these deals were actually successfully paid off, that is not as a result of MLT’s rigorous processes”. On balance, and despite the use of the word “if” in the second sentence, it appears to us that the FTT did find as a fact that the Employers had fully repaid the Pension Funding Deals.