Michael Coyle t/a Coyle Transport v The Commissioners for HM Revenue and Customs
| Jurisdiction | UK Non-devolved |
| Judge | Judge Raghavan,Judge Dean |
| Neutral Citation | [2020] UKUT 0113 (TCC) |
| Court | Upper Tribunal (Tax and Chancery Chamber) |
| Subject Matter | Tax,8 April 2020 |
| Date | 08 April 2020 |
| Published date | 08 April 2020 |
[2020] UKUT 0113 (TCC)
Appeal number: UT/2019/0051
PROCEDURE – Permission to make a late appeal refused by FTT–
appellant maintained underlying excise duty and penalty assessments
invalid because they did not name a natural or legal person – FTT Decision
on permission to appeal out of time set aside for errors of law and remade by
UT – time limit for appealing to FTT still applied where appellant sought to
challenge validity of assessments before the FTT - permission to appeal out
of time refused.
UPPER TRIBUNAL
TAX AND CHANCERY CHAMBER
Michael Coyle t/a Coyle Transport
Appellant
- and -
THE COMMISSIONERS FOR HER
MAJESTY’S REVENUE AND CUSTOMS
Respondents
TRIBUNAL:
JUDGE SWAMI RAGHAVAN
JUDGE JENNIFER DEAN
Sitting in public at the Tribunal Hearing Centre, Royal Courts of Justice,
Chichester Street, Belfast on 25 February 2020. Further written submissions
pursuant to the Tribunal’s direction were made by the appellant on 4 March 2020
and HMRC on 9 March 2020.
Danny McNamee, solicitor, of McNamee McDonnell Solicitors, for the Appellant
Charlotte Brown, counsel, instructed by the General Counsel and Solicitor to Her
Majesty’s Revenue & Customs for the Respondents
© CROWN COPYRIGHT 2020
DECISION
Introduction
1. This is an appeal by Mr Michael Coyle against a decision of the First-tier Tribunal
(“FTT”) issued on 28 January 2019 published as Michael Coyle trading as Coyle
Transport v HMRC [2019] UKFTT 60 (TC) (“the FTT Decision”). The FTT Decision
concerned appeals against an excise duty assessment under s12(1A) Finance Act 1994
in the sum of £29,140 and a related penalty assessment of £5,828 under Schedule 41
Finance Act 2008 which the FTT considered had been made 4 years and 9 months late.
The FTT refused permission to bring the late appeals.
2. The central issue, both before the FTT and before us, is the significance of the fact
that Mr Michael Coyle was not named in any of the documents imposing the
assessment; rather those documents referred to “Coyle Transport”. Before the FTT, Mr
Michael Coyle’s argument, which the FTT rejected, was that the assessment and
penalty on Coyle Transport did not relate to him but to the business run by his father,
Mr Eamon Coyle. Before us, Mr Michael Coyle’s core submission is that, having found
as fact that the assessment and penalty did not name either a natural or a legal person
as required by the relevant legislation, the FTT could not, as a matter of law, then
conclude the assessment and penalty were valid. HMRC argue the FTT correctly
considered, according to the relevant case-law principles, how a reasonable person
looking at the documents addressed to Coyle Transport would read them and was
correct to conclude, in view of the facts it found, that the documents, read objectively,
were directed to Mr Michael Coyle.
Background facts and FTT Decision
3. As will be seen, the limited terms of the permission granted for the appeal before
us mean there can be no challenge to the facts found by the FTT and which we
summarise below. The relevance of some of those facts to the legal question, of whether
an assessment or penalty was made on Mr Michael Coyle, is a matter of dispute which
we will come on to. Given the appellant’s case is that no valid assessments were made,
the references in our summary of the FTT Decision to the term “assessment” should
not be taken to express any conclusion on our part that the assessments were validly
made.
4. The relevant assessment and penalty arose from a seizure of a lorry PHZ6538 and
load of beer by HMRC (Officer McGuiness) on 12 December 2012 ([5]
1
).
5. When Officer McGuiness pulled over the lorry - in Mitcham, the driver (Mr Hilley)
was recorded as having told HMRC (i) that he worked for Michael Coyle; (ii) that the
lorry was Michael Coyle's vehicle; (iii) that Michael Coyle gave him instructions in
relation to the journey, and the swapping of trailers; (iv) that he presumed Michael
1
Paragraph numbers refer to those in the FTT Decision unless the context requires ot herwise.
To continue reading
Request your trial