UT/2024/000060 - [2025] UKUT 00143 (TCC)

The Claimant also refers to the fact that HMRC’s Business brief was not issued until 2020. Even that said that further discussions were required to agree FNR. The briefing document is of little, if any, relevance to what we have to decide. Leaving aside the fact that the briefing document was concerned with claims to double taxation relief, this is not a case where judicial review is sought on the basis of a legitimate expectation on the part of the Claimant that the Deficit Claim would be admitted. It is not suggested that the briefing document, or for that matter the very limited correspondence between HMRC and the Claimant, prior to the making of the Deficit Claim, created any legitimate expectation that the Deficit Claim would be admitted. Given this position, it is difficult to see how the briefing document, or the timing of its circulation had any relevance to the Decision, independent of the fact that these matters are not capable, on any view, of rendering the Decision irrational.

In addition, the Claimant, at the latest from 2018, following the hand down of Prudential SC, would have known that a claim based on FNR needed to be made. Even it were assumed a later document evinced an HMRC position that it was permissible not to have made a claim and that more time should be allowed, it would not explain why a claim could not have been made in the period before the briefing document was issued such as to render a decision not to extend time one that was irrational.