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Chapter CH181140

Document Cited authorities 4 Cited in Related
Vincent
Published date11 March 2016
Record NumberCH181140

The Tribunal in Gandhi Tandoori Restaurant (1989) VATTR 39 considered the meaning of the word “dishonesty”.

“It seems to us clear that in such a context, where a person has, ex hypothesi, done, or omitted to do, something with the intention of evading tax, then by adding that that conduct must involve dishonesty before the penalty is to attach, Parliament must have intended to add a further mental element in addition to the mental element of intending to evade tax. We think that that element can only be that when he did, or omitted to do, the act with the intention of evading tax, he knew that according to the ordinary standards of reasonable and honest people that what he was doing would be regarded as dishonest.”

Dishonesty in this context follows the guidance given by the Court of Appeal in R v. Ghosh [1982] 1 QB 1053, CA, where a two-step test for showing dishonesty was set out:

“In determining whether the prosecution has proved that the defendant was acting dishonestly, a jury must first of all decide whether according to the ordinary standards of reasonable and honest people what was done was dishonest. . . If it was dishonest by those standards, then the jury must consider whether the defendant himself must have realised that was he was doing was by those standards dishonest. In most cases, where the actions are obviously dishonest by ordinary standards, there will be no doubt about it. It will be obvious that the defendant himself knew that he was acting dishonestly. It is dishonest for a defendant to act in a way which he knows ordinary people consider to be dishonest, even if he asserts or genuinely believes that he is morally justified in acting as he did. For example, Robin Hood or those...

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