Tag Archives: Derry

LTAG Appeal Granted

We are very pleased to announce that, after an extraordinary delay, our application to appeal the High Court decision to the Court of Appeal has been granted.

It is worth observing that the Judge, Lord Justice David Richards, was unimpressed with HMRC’s initial skeleton argument and demanded that it be returned with a more fully-reasoned case. It is also interesting to note that, when ultimately granting permission to appeal, the Judge said that, having studied HMRC’s skeleton argument “I am not satisfied that my initial but provisional view that there was a real (as opposed to a fanciful) prospect of a successful appeal was wrong. The issues raised require oral argument.”

In addition, a very recent Supreme Court decision in a case called Derry has enabled us to strengthen the claim we are making at the Court of Appeal.

Derry also concerns loss claims made in a tax return and the interaction of tax administrative law. We won’t rehearse the detail here other than to say that the Derry ruling throws serious doubt on obiter dicta comments made by Lord Hodge in the case of De Silva, on HMRC’s powers to recover over-repayments of tax from carry-back claims, that being the case on which the High Court in Amrolia pinned its adverse judgment.

Derry may also have raised the prospect that where a claim for a loss arising in year 2 was made in the year 1 tax return, and was therefore part of the year 1 tax return, if HMRC failed to enquire into the year 1 return it cannot have a second bite of the cherry and enquire into the year 2 return.

As to when we will get into Court, this will depend upon the Court diary, assuming that the case will require maybe a day and a half. The present expectation is that this could be in the first quarter of 2020.

In addition, we are also aware of another case, Knibbs, where an appeal to the Court of Appeal has been heard, and judgement will soon be given, also on the grounds that De Silva was wrongly decided.

We regard the award of our appeal as very encouraging. Also, Derry & Knibbs undermine the De Silva judgement strengthening our own appeal.

Hearing date set for LTAG Claim to question HMRC Powers of Recovery

The High Court, HMRC and LTAG have agreed that the LTAG Claim to question HMRC’s powers of recovery will be heard on June 21st and June 22nd at the High Court in London.

The hearing will be the first time ever that a substantive claim has been made that clarifies the legal powers HMRC may have to recover repayments of tax made to taxpayers in the past.

The LTAG hearing will bring together prior decisions made in Derry, De Silva and others as well as bring forward significant new legal arguments that have never been well discussed in prior claims against HMRC.

With the hearing date finally set, formal statements of claim and defence from LTAG and HMRC are already being exchanged.

If you have an interest in this claim and how it may apply to you please complete the enquiry form on the Join page of this web site.