The upper hand?

The search for the boundaries—and bases—of a supervisory jurisdiction in the First-tier Tribunal continues. The first foray was made by Sales J in Oxfam v HMRC [2009] EWHC 3078 (Ch), [2009] All ER (D) 326 (Nov) where he concluded that the basis for such a jurisdiction in the finance and tax chamber of the First-tier Tribunal (and its predecessors) could be found in certain sub-paras of s 83 of the Value Added Tax Act 1994.

Since that decision, in which Sales J himself recognised his observations were obiter, a number of First-tier Tribunal judges in the finance and tax chamber have accepted at least a limited supervisory jurisdiction. The tax and chancery chamber of the Upper Tribunal is yet to consider the issue, although, in December 2010, Mr Justice Warren, president of the tax and chancery chamber of the Upper Tribunal, sitting with Judge Avery Jones CBE as both the First-tier Tribunal and Upper Tribunal in