UT-2024-000123 - [2025] UKUT 00360 (TCC)

HMRC contend that the FTT erred in law in the following respects.

Ground 1: under the heading ‘Meaning of “paid”’, the FTT wrongly decided that section 84(8), where it continues to apply, applies to any situation in which, on an appeal, it is determined that amounts have been paid to HMRC which were not due to HMRC: FTT [136]. The FTT wrongly decided that the application of section 84(8) was not limited to the situations in section 84(3) VATA: FTT [136], but ‘imposes the mandatory obligation ‘shall be repaid’ in all situations in which tax has been paid’: FTT [137].

Ground 2: further or alternatively to Ground 1, under the heading ‘Are the amounts which have been repaid amounts determined as payable by HMRC in respect of an appeal under section 83(b)’, the FTT wrongly decided that the principal amounts in issue in the Section 80 Appeals (Footnote: ⁵) were amounts ‘paid in pursuance of section 84(3)’ and that the conditions for the application of section 84(8) were met because the FTT wrongly decided that they were amounts ‘which the Commissioners have determined as payable’ in connection with an appeal under section 83(b) and which were thereby required to have been paid in order that the appeal be entertained: FTT [141].

Consequently, the FTT erred in law in deciding at FTT [148] and [155(2)] that the Section 80 Objection –