High Court strikes out a claim seeking declarations that no tax is due
In Austick v HMRC [2024] EWHC 2175 (Ch), the High Court has summarily dismissed a claim seeking declarations that the taxpayer had paid all tax due and that HMRC had lost the ability to make any additional assessment in respect of his liability for the 1999/00 and 2000/01 tax years. The claim should have been brought by way of judicial review and it was not open to the taxpayer to circumvent that requirement by alleging that the claim for declaratory relief was pre-emptive action akin to a defence to enforcement proceedings.
Notwithstanding the strike out of the claim, the High Court also considered the substance of the Claimant’s claim, dismissing it on its merits. The Claimant claimed that he had made amendments to his self-assessment calculation for the 1999/00 tax year in a letter. The Court construed the letter and determined that the letter made a claim outside of a return under schedule 1A TMA rather than amending the taxpayer’s self-assessment. Schedule 1B TMA therefore required that the claim be included in the later year return, and HMRC were entitled to amend the amount of the claim by an enquiry into that later year’s return.
Joshua Carey and Sam Way acted for HMRC.
The judgement can be found in full here.
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