February’s edition of Tax Journal includes an article by Field Court Tax Chamber’s Peter Vaines which will be of keen interest to anyone considering tax return disclosures and the time limit for discovery assessments. In this article, Peter considers the issues raised by the recent Upper Tribunal decision of Carter v HMRC. The question at hand was the power of HMRC to make a discovery assessment and the application of the available awareness test as set out by the Court of Appeal in Langham v Veltema. At what point can HMRC be considered to have sufficient information? Might this only be when they form their judgement – with or without Counsel’s advice? What is the impact on the expiration of the time limit for the raising of the assessment? This is an area likely to continue to be the subject of litigation for some time to come. You can find the article in Tax Journal here or on the FCTC website here.
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