Peter Vaines reports on the latest news from the world of tax
- What is a reasonable excuse for not paying tax on time?
- If the owner of shares dies before making a claim for income tax relief under s 131 of the Income Tax Act 2007, can the claim be made by his executors?
- Revisiting the text for employee expenses.
- What is to become of the Finance Bill?
I am always on the lookout for reasonable excuses (you never know when you might need one) and there have been two conflicting cases decided recently.
In Crossley v HMRC TC 5535 the taxpayer managed to persuade the Tribunal that he had a reasonable excuse for not paying his tax on time because he did not have the money. That was a seriously impressive success because Sch 56(16) of the Finance Act 2009 specifically states: ‘An insufficiency of funds is not a reasonable excuse, unless attributable to events outside the person’s control.’
The facts were interesting—but it just goes to show that the words ‘attributable
