Eillish Kwai v The Commissioners for HMRC [2026] UKFTT 1033 (TC)

[2026] UKFTT 01033 (TC)

Case No TC 09952

FIRST-TIER TRIBUNAL

TAX CHAMBER

Hearing Heard on: 10 April 2026

Date Judgment date: 09 July 2026

Between

EILLISH KWAIAppellant

Between

THE COMMISSIONERS FORRespondents

HIS MAJESTY’S REVENUE AND CUSTOMSRespondent

Taylor House, London

Appeal reference: TC/2025/00980

Income tax – Expenses incurred in the performance of duties of employment – Travel expenses – Whether expenses deductible – No - appeal dismissed.

TRIBUNAL: JUDGE JAMES AUSTEN JUDGE MICHAEL BLACKWELL

The Appellant in person for Appellant

Ms Agate Osane, Litigator of HM Revenue and Customs’ Solicitor’s Office for Respondents

DECISION

Introduction

[1]This is an appeal against five discovery assessments all dated 16 October 2024, issued under section 29 of the Taxes Management Act 1970 (“TMA”), and one closure notice also dated 16 October 2024, issued under section 28A(1B) and (2) TMA, all of which amended the Appellant’s self-assessment tax returns for the tax periods ending 2018/19 to 2023/24 inclusive, (each an “SATR” and together the “Returns”) by adjusting travel expenses claimed by the Appellant, as follows: Date Issued Tax Year Legislation Sum 16 October 2024 2018/19 Discovery Assessment £2,195.00 16 October 2024 2019/20 Discovery Assessment £2,795.00 16 October 2024 2020/21 Discovery Assessment £4,395.00 16 October 2024 2021/22 Discovery Assessment £2,795.20 16 October 2024 2022/23 Discovery Assessment £5,740.20 16 October 2024 2023/24 Closure Notice £7,924.05

[2]The Tribunal issued a Decision Notice on 30 April 2026, setting out a summary of the reasons for our decision to dismiss the Appellant’s appeal. The Appellant has requested full facts and reasons for our decision, with a view to seeking permission to appeal to the Upper Tribunal. This decision sets out those full facts and reasons.

[3]For the reasons explained below, the Tribunal decided to dismiss the appeal. The discovery assessments for 2018–19 to 2022–23 and the closure notice for 2023–24, as varied by HMRC on review, therefore stand good.

Procedural History

[4]On 6 August 2024, an HMRC officer, Mr Kenneth Daniels, opened an enquiry into the Appellant’s SATR for the tax year ending 5 April 2024 by way of a letter sent to the Appellant which included a notice of enquiry. On 14 August 2024, following correspondence and a telephone call with the Appellant, Mr Daniels e-mailed the Appellant to notify her that he intended to extend his enquiry to reassess expense claims submitted in the previous five SATRs, dating back to the 2018-19 tax year.

[5]On 16 October 2024, Mr Daniels issued the Closure Notice for the 2023-24 tax year and the Discovery Assessments relating to tax years 2018-19 to 2022-23 (inclusive).

[6]On 29 October 2024, the Appellant e-mailed Mr Daniels attaching a letter notifying her appeal dated 22 October 2024.

[7]On 7 November 2024, Mr Daniels replied to the Appellant accepting her appeal and issuing his View of the Matter letter.

[8]On 8 November 2024, the Appellant informed Mr Daniels by e-mail that she wished a review to be carried out.

[9]On 20 November 2024, Mr Daniels issued a Review Acknowledgement letter to the Appellant accepting her appeal and informing her that the review should be completed by 22 December 2024.

[10]On 9 December 2024, the Review Officer requested an extension of time to complete the review, with a new deadline of 5 February 2025. No objection to that was received from the Appellant.

[11]On 5 February 2025, the Review Conclusion letter was sent to the Appellant. That varied slightly the View of the Matter calculations, but the Closure Notice and the Discovery Assessments issued to the Appellant on 16 October 2024 otherwise stood good.

Evidence and Facts

[12]The Tribunal was provided with a hearing bundle by HMRC, which (inter alia) included a Witness Statement by Mr Kenneth Daniels, the inspector who dealt with the enquiry into the Appellant’s Returns. The Appellant did not provide a Witness Statement and the Tribunal decided that her letter of appeal to HMRC should stand as her evidence in chief.

[13]We heard sworn oral evidence from Mr Daniels, who was cross-examined by the Appellant and answered questions from the Tribunal. We allowed the Appellant to give sworn evidence notwithstanding the lack of a Witness Statement from her, and she was cross-examined by Ms Osane and answered additional questions from the Tribunal.

[14]From the documents in the hearing bundle and the evidence we heard, the Tribunal makes the following findings of fact:(1) During the relevant years the Appellant was employed by the construction business Ardmore in a role described in our materials as Community Manager or Community Liaison Manager. Her work required her to attend multiple construction sites and related meetings within London. The sites changed over time as projects were completed and new projects commenced.

(2) The Appellant lived in Colchester. She had moved there in late 2015. Her place of residence was therefore outside London throughout the period relevant to the appeal.

(3) The Appellant used her own vehicle for at least some of her work-related journeys. Her employer paid her a car allowance of £300 per month, which was taxed through PAYE.

(4) The Appellant claimed substantial sums in her self-assessment returns in respect of employment expenses, principally mileage. The figures claimed were £17,000 for 2018–19, £20,000 for 2019–20, £28,000 (or £28,312 on one version of the return) for 2020–21, £20,000 for 2021–22, £24,000 for 2022–23 and £21,000 for 2023–24.

(5) The Appellant amended some of those returns repeatedly. In particular, the 2023–24 return was amended seven times, and the 2021–22 return was amended eight times. In some years the amount of expenses claimed increased materially on amendment, without any contemporaneous records supporting the revised figure.

(6) The Appellant did not keep contemporaneous mileage logs or any equivalent record which identified, for each journey, the date, start point, destination, purpose, and mileage. She accepted in her exchanges with HMRC that she had not kept such records.

(7) On 6 August 2024, HMRC opened an enquiry into the Appellant’s 2023–24 return. That enquiry was opened after the Appellant had submitted and amended that return and after HMRC had become concerned about the size of the expenses claim and discrepancies in the return.

(8) In a telephone conversation with HMRC on 9 August 2024 the Appellant explained that she regarded herself as site-based, that she travelled to various sites in London, that she believed she could claim from home, and that she had no mileage records. She estimated that she travelled about 150 miles a day on average.

(9) Thereafter the Appellant provided HMRC with a number of emails, screenshots from calendars and diaries, and spreadsheets or schedules which she said related to mileage. The calendar material did not provide a reliable contemporaneous record of journeys and often did not show the addresses visited, the purpose of travel, or sufficient detail to permit accurate mileage calculations. No employment contract was produced. No letter from the employer was produced which established, in legally relevant terms, that the Appellant had no permanent workplace or that she was entitled to relief for travel from home to the first site in London.

(10) The Tribunal is satisfied that the Appellant did carry out genuine work-related travel within London and that some deduction for business mileage was due. HMRC accepted this during the enquiry and review process, and allowed a reduced annual figure for intra-London mileage.

(11) However, HMRC recalculated the claims on the footing that travel from home in Colchester to the London area was not deductible, but that travel within London could qualify. HMRC allowed an annual figure of approximately £6,025 in most years and a lower figure in the principal pandemic year.

(12) The Appellant’s own figures substantially exceeded what could be justified by the evidence. They were also internally inconsistent. For example, in some years the Appellant’s original return claimed around £10,750 in mileage and the claim was later increased to £20,000 or £24,000 without any adequate explanation of the methodology by which the larger figure had been reached. In 2020–21 a claim in excess of £28,000 was made notwithstanding the evident reduction in travel during the coronavirus pandemic. The Appellant’s oral evidence did not satisfy the Tribunal as to the appropriateness of her methodology in calculating mileage.

(13) The Tribunal accepts, and finds as fact, that the Appellant met Mr Jim Wicks of HMRC at Colchester Town Hall on 4 February 2016 and that at that meeting Mr Wicks completed the Appellant’s 2014–15 self-assessment tax return with her. That is confirmed by HMRC’s own Self-Assessment notes, which also record that, before the date of the meeting, HMRC had updated the Appellant’s address to her Colchester address. Those notes were not included in HMRC’s hearing bundle, although HMRC knew throughout that the fact of the meeting was central to the Appellant’s case. Mr Daniels, who dealt with the Appellant’s case and issued the discovery assessments, initially denied in his oral evidence that there were any notes of the meeting, though he later accepted that the notes did exist when directed to provide them. There was no excuse for HMRC’s failure to include those notes in the hearing bundle, and the Tribunal records its criticism of that omission.

(14) However, the Tribunal is not able to find as fact that Mr Wicks advised the Appellant in terms that she was entitled to claim mileage from her home in Colchester to the London sites she attended pursuant to her employment, or that it was reasonable for the Appellant to rely on any such purported advice, without more, when completing her later self-assessment tax returns. That question was not relevant to what the Tribunal finds to have been the only (or principal) subject matter of the meeting, namely the preparation of the Appellant’s 2014–15 return, in respect of which that question did not arise because the Appellant lived in London for the duration of that period.

[15]Regrettably, we found some elements of the oral evidence from both Mr Daniels and the Appellant to be less than satisfactory.

[16]At one point in his oral evidence, Mr Daniels told us that there was no independent evidence of the Appellant’s meeting with Mr Jim Wicks, and no notes of that meeting. During cross-examination, when asked why he did not believe the Appellant when she told him about that meeting, he said it was because he was not supplied with any evidence for it. In any event, he said, he inferred from the meeting’s timing, which was shortly after the Appellant moved to Colchester, that it would have related to the Appellant’s 2015 return, and not her 2016 return (which was the first tax year in which she travelled to work from outside the M25). Mr Daniels also said that even if the Appellant had been right in her contention that she had met with Mr Wicks to discuss tax deductions for travel, and that Mr Wicks had given her advice on which she relied in good faith, another HMRC officer (such as him) looking at the matter at a later date could consider it afresh and he was not bound by Mr Wicks’s view.

[17]In answer to a later question put to him by Judge Blackwell, Mr Daniels told us that a colleague had shown him how to search HMRC’s self-assessment notes system, that he had checked that database, and that he had reviewed HMRC’s records of that meeting. He accepted that the meeting had taken place, but repeated his belief that it concerned the Appellant’s 2015 tax return, for which her move to Colchester was not relevant to the tax analysis.

[18]Judge Blackwell asked Mr Daniels why the notes of the Appellant’s meeting with Mr Wicks had not been included in the hearing bundle prepared by HMRC. Mr Daniels replied that he had been unaware of the meeting when he issued the Assessments, and he had only found and reviewed those notes at a later date. As a result, in his view, the notes were not relevant to his decision under appeal, and so they were not relevant evidence for the Tribunal to consider.

[19]Given the centrality of the Appellant’s meeting with Mr Wicks to her case, as Mr Daniels and Ms Osane knew, the decision not to include the note in the Tribunal's bundle was a serious omission. The Tribunal was unable to accept HMRC's submission that the note was irrelevant to the appeal. The existence of the meeting with Mr Wicks was central to the Appellant's case, and reasonable preparation of the appeal required the relevant HMRC records to be identified and included within the hearing bundle. Accordingly, we directed that HMRC must file a screenshot of the notes by e-mail on the day of the hearing, which was done. We reviewed the relevant note, which read: 04/02/2016 SAW TP AT COLCHESTER TOWN HALLCOMPLETED [sic] SA ITR 14/15 PLUS EMP PAGE JIM WICKS 6062841 NES OPEN

[20]In her oral evidence, the Appellant said that her SATRs for the discovery assessment years had provided information to HMRC about her mileage calculations, including the fact that the figures given for mileage costs were estimates.

[21]As with the note of the Appellant’s meeting with Mr Wicks, copies of the Appellant’s tax returns were not included in the Tribunal’s bundle, which we considered yet another oversight: Mr Daniels and Ms Osane ought reasonably to have expected that a complete bundle relating to discovery assessments where the Appellant had filed SATRs should have included copies of those SATRs. That was so even though this aspect of the Appellant’s case was only articulated for the first time during her oral evidence (and where she had failed to file a Witness Statement in advance).

[22]Had the bundle contained the tax returns, we could have turned to them when the Appellant mentioned them to discover immediately the truth or otherwise of her assertion. As it was, and because this point was relevant to HMRC’s discovery assessment powers pursuant to section 29(5)-(6) TMA, we expressed our further dissatisfaction about the parties’ preparation of the case, which caused the hearing to overrun its allotted time and caused the Tribunal to have to issue oral directions for the point to be resolved after the hearing. We directed that HMRC were to provide copies of the Appellant’s self-assessment returns for those years, and their amendments, by no later than 5pm on Monday 13 April 2026, and to file and serve written submissions on the sufficiency or otherwise of any notification in the returns that the mileage figures were estimates by no later than 5pm on Wednesday 15 April 2026; the Appellant was permitted to file and serve written submissions in reply by no later than 5pm on Friday 17 April 2026. Those documents were duly received and considered by the Tribunal by the appointed dates.

[23]The Appellant’s submissions noted that “The documents provided are not showing the recorded amounts to allow you to see the drop down section where it allows you to show actual or estimated” and “Even the documentation seems to be a newer version from looking at it…”. It is clear that the materials provided by HMRC represented the data captured from the Appellant’s SATRs, which had been saved onto their systems, rather than copies of the returns as actually filed by the Appellant. However, we did not consider anything to turn on that point, as we are willing to accept for these purposes that HMRC routinely capture all relevant data from such returns.

[24]Having reviewed the documents (and the parties’ submissions), we agreed with HMRC’s submission that there was no evidence supporting the Appellant’s contention that she had drawn HMRC’s attention to the fact that the mileage figures she provided were estimates. We therefore find as fact that the Appellant did not include information with her returns that would have alerted the hypothetical reasonable HMRC officer to deficiencies in the amounts claimed in respect of mileage.

[25]Notwithstanding the deficiencies in HMRC's preparation of the hearing bundle and aspects of the oral evidence given by both Mr Daniels and the Appellant, we did not conclude that either witness was deliberately attempting to mislead the other party or the Tribunal. We considered that the difficulties which emerged in the evidence were attributable to inadequate preparation, imperfect recollection and, on occasion, confusion. Accordingly, whilst we regarded certain aspects of the evidence as inaccurate or unreliable, we did not regard those matters as undermining the witnesses' general honesty. We have therefore reached our findings of fact on the basis of the documentary evidence and those parts of the oral evidence which we found reliable.

Legal Provisions

[26]The relevant statutory provisions may be summarised as follows:(1) Under section 9A TMA, HMRC may enquire into a self-assessment return by giving notice of enquiry within the time allowed by the statute. Under section 28A TMA, once such an enquiry has been completed HMRC must state their conclusions and make any amendments to the return required to give effect to those conclusions by a closure notice.

(2) Under section 29 TMA, if an officer of HMRC discovers that an amount of income tax which ought to have been assessed has not been assessed, HMRC may make an assessment in order to make good the loss of tax, subject to the conditions in that section. Where the taxpayer has made and delivered a return, HMRC must show either that the insufficiency of tax was brought about carelessly or deliberately by the taxpayer or someone acting on her behalf (section 29(4)), or that HMRC could not reasonably have been expected, on the information then available, to be aware of the insufficiency (section 29(5)).

(3) Section 34 TMA imposes a general four-year time limit for assessments. Section 36 TMA extends that period to six years where the loss of tax was brought about carelessly and to twenty years where it was brought about deliberately.

(4) Section 12B TMA requires a person who makes a return to keep and preserve records sufficient to enable that person to make and deliver a correct and complete return.

(5) Sections 337 to 339 ITEPA govern the deductibility of travel expenses for employees. In broad terms, deductions may be allowed for travel in the performance of the duties of the employment or for necessary attendance at a place in the performance of those duties, but no deduction is allowed for ordinary commuting. Ordinary commuting means travel between home and a permanent workplace. Section 339 provides, among other things, that an employee may be treated as having a permanent workplace consisting of an area where the duties of the employment are defined by reference to that area and the employee attends different places within it.

(6) HMRC also relied on the decision of the Upper Tribunal in Anderson v HMRC

[2018] UKUT 159 (TCC)

, which explains that a discovery assessment requires both a subjective belief on the part of the officer that there is an insufficiency of tax and an objectively reasonable basis for that belief.

Parties’ arguments

[27]On the enquiry and closure notice, HMRC submitted that the enquiry into the 2023–24 return had been validly opened on 6 August 2024 and validly concluded by the closure notice of 16 October 2024. The Appellant did not advance any substantial challenge to the procedural validity of the enquiry notice or closure notice, beyond her broader complaint that HMRC should have raised concerns earlier.

[28]On section 29 TMA, HMRC submitted that the 2023–24 enquiry revealed that the Appellant’s historic mileage claims had been made on the same mistaken basis and in materially excessive amounts. HMRC submitted that this constituted a discovery of insufficiency of tax within section 29, and that the insufficiency had been brought about carelessly because the Appellant had kept no records and had claimed figures which she could not substantiate. HMRC further submitted that the six-year time limit under section 36 therefore applied.

[29]The Appellant submitted that HMRC ought not to revisit six years of returns when the issue came to light only because of an error in her 2023–24 return. She submitted that HMRC should have identified any problem much earlier and that HMRC had, in substance, failed in a duty of care to her by paying earlier repayments and not intervening sooner.

[30]On the travel provisions in ITEPA, the Appellant submitted that she did not have a permanent workplace, that she was site-based, that she travelled to temporary workplaces, and that travel from home to those workplaces was therefore deductible. She submitted that she had been told as much by an HMRC officer (Mr Jim Wicks) in the meeting in Colchester Town Hall in 2016. She also relied on the fact that public transport was not always a practical option and that her employer did not provide a company vehicle.

[31]HMRC submitted that, on the Appellant’s own account, her duties were performed throughout London and were, they concluded, defined by reference to an area. HMRC submitted that London constituted a permanent workplace area within section 339(8) ITEPA, so that travel from Colchester to London was ordinary commuting. HMRC accepted that travel within London could be deductible and submitted that its revised figures already gave generous credit for that travel.

[32]On the purported 2016 advice, the Appellant submitted that HMRC should be held to what she had been told and that she had claimed on the footing that the claims were proper. HMRC submitted that the Appellant had not proved the content of the alleged advice, that any informal advice could not alter the statutory test, and that in any event the Appellant remained responsible for filing accurate returns supported by records.

Discussion and conclusion

[33]The Tribunal is satisfied that the enquiry into the 2023–24 return was validly opened and that the closure notice of 16 October 2024 validly brought that enquiry to an end. Nothing in the material before us suggests any failure to comply with sections 9A or 28A TMA.

[34]On the facts as we have found them, the Tribunal is also satisfied that HMRC made a valid discovery for the purposes of s.29 TMA in relation to the earlier years. The enquiry into the Appellant's 2023–24 return revealed a combination of matters which had not previously been known to HMRC: first, that the Appellant had no contemporaneous mileage records; secondly, that she regarded travel between her home in Colchester and sites in London as deductible business travel; thirdly, that substantial mileage claims had been made over a number of years using broadly the same methodology; and fourthly, that the amounts claimed could not be reconciled with reliable supporting evidence. Having acquired that information during the enquiry, it was open to an officer to conclude that corresponding insufficiencies of tax existed in earlier years. We are satisfied that Mr Daniels genuinely formed that belief and that, viewed objectively, it was a belief which a reasonable officer could hold. The requirements identified by the Upper Tribunal in Anderson v HMRC are therefore met.

[35]The Tribunal further finds that the insufficiency of tax in the earlier years was brought about by the Appellant’s careless behaviour. She claimed substantial employment expense deductions year after year without keeping records sufficient to show that the claims were correct. The amounts claimed were not minor or marginal. They were very large in the context of the Appellant’s earnings, and they were increased on amendment in a way which the Tribunal cannot reconcile with any reliable methodology. Further, the Tribunal is satisfied, having reviewed the returns provided after the hearing, that the Appellant did not include in them any statement that the mileage figures were estimates, nor any other information sufficient to alert a hypothetical reasonable officer to deficiencies in the claims. Even accepting that the Appellant honestly believed that some relief was due, the absence of records, the scale of the claims, and the lack of any sufficient notification in the returns amount to a failure to take reasonable care.

[36]We have taken into account the Appellant's contention that she relied upon advice given by Mr Wicks at the meeting held on 4 February 2016. We accept that the Appellant genuinely believes that she was told that travel from her home to London construction sites was deductible. However, for the reasons already explained, we are not satisfied on the balance of probabilities that advice in those terms was given. Even if it had been given, reasonable care required the Appellant to maintain records supporting substantial claims for employment expenses and to ensure that the figures entered in her returns were capable of justification. The absence of any contemporaneous mileage records over a period of several years, together with the scale of the claims made and repeatedly amended, means that reliance upon the alleged conversation with Mr Wicks would not be sufficient to displace the conclusion that the insufficiency of tax was brought about by careless behaviour.

[37]It follows that HMRC was entitled to rely on the six-year time limit in section 36 TMA. The discovery assessments issued on 16 October 2024 for the years 2018–19 to 2022–23 were therefore made in time.

[38]As to the substantive travel issue, we accept HMRC's central submission. The evidence demonstrates that the Appellant's role was not tied to a single construction site. Rather, throughout the relevant period, she was required to attend a succession of construction projects and associated meetings located across London. The locations changed over time as projects were completed and new projects commenced, but the essential nature of the Appellant's employment remained the same. Her duties required her to operate throughout London in support of Ardmore's construction activities.

[39]Section 339(8) ITEPA recognises that some employments are defined not by attendance at one workplace but by attendance at different workplaces within a geographical area. In such circumstances the permanent workplace may consist of the area itself. The question is therefore not whether the employee attends a number of different locations, but whether the duties of the employment are properly characterised as being defined by reference to an area.

[40]Having considered all the evidence before us, we find that the Appellant's duties were so defined. The recurring and continuing feature of her employment was attendance at locations throughout London. Although individual construction sites came and went, the Appellant's responsibilities remained linked to London as the geographical area within which Ardmore was carrying out projects. We therefore conclude that, for the purposes of section 339(8), the Appellant did have a permanent workplace consisting of London (which we take to be within the perimeter of the M25, as proposed by HMRC in lieu of any alternative, on which the Appellant did not address us) as an area.

[41]We fully accept that individual sites attended by the Appellant were not necessarily permanent in themselves and that many would ordinarily be described as temporary workplaces. However, that does not determine the appeal. The statutory question is whether the employment falls within the area-based workplace provisions. On the facts we have found, we conclude that it does. The changing sites attended by the Appellant formed part of an ongoing pattern of attendance within the same geographical area in which her duties were carried out. In those circumstances, travel from her home in Colchester to the London area constituted ordinary commuting and was not deductible.

[42]Once the Appellant had arrived within the area constituting her permanent workplace, travel undertaken in the course of performing her duties between locations within London could qualify for relief. That is why HMRC accepted that a measure of deductible mileage existed and revised the Appellant's claims accordingly.

[43]The Tribunal accepts that the Appellant undertook genuine business travel within London and was entitled to some relief. However, the burden rested on the Appellant to show that the closure notice was excessive and, once HMRC had established discovery and time limits, that the discovery assessments were excessive. The Appellant has not done so. She produced no reliable mileage records and no sufficiently persuasive alternative computation. In those circumstances the Tribunal sees no proper basis for departing from HMRC’s revised figures, which already make allowance for intra-London travel.

[44]We recognise that HMRC's revised figures are themselves necessarily estimates to some extent, because of the absence of reliable contemporaneous records. However, HMRC's calculations were derived from the documentary material available, including the Appellant's calendars, emails and explanations of her duties, and were directed to identifying mileage genuinely attributable to travel undertaken within London. The Appellant did not advance an alternative calculation supported by reliable evidence. In those circumstances, and bearing in mind that the burden lies on the Appellant to show that the assessments and closure notice are excessive, we are satisfied that HMRC's revised figures represent a fair and reasonable approximation of the deductible mileage evidenced by the material before us.

[45]The 4 February 2016 meeting does not alter that conclusion. The Tribunal has found that the meeting took place and that HMRC should have ascertained and admitted that fact far earlier than they did. But the Tribunal is not satisfied as to the specific content of any advice said to have been given on the point now in issue. In any event, any such advice could not override the statutory rules, and it would not have relieved the Appellant of the obligation to keep records and to ensure that her returns were correct.

[46]Nor does the Appellant’s complaint that HMRC ought to have identified the issue earlier assist her. HMRC’s delay in opening an enquiry, even if it could fairly be described as such, does not alter the statutory test for deductibility or prevent HMRC from making assessments which the legislation otherwise permits.

[47]Drawing those matters together, the Tribunal concludes that the Appellant has not shown that the closure notice for 2023–24 is excessive. HMRC have shown that the discovery assessments for 2018–19 to 2022–23 were validly made and in time, and the Appellant has not shown that those assessments are excessive. The appeal is dismissed.

[48]The closure notice and the discovery assessments, as varied on review, therefore stand good, and the Appellant must pay additional tax in the amounts calculated by HMRC as noted above, coming to £25,844.45 in total.

Right to apply for permission to appeal

[49]This document contains full findings of fact and reasons for the decision. Any party dissatisfied with this decision has a right to apply for permission to appeal against it pursuant to Rule 39 of the Tribunal Procedure (First-tier Tribunal) (Tax Chamber) Rules 2009. The application must be received by this Tribunal not later than 56 days after this decision is sent to that party. The parties are referred to “Guidance to accompany a Decision from the First-tier Tribunal (Tax Chamber)” which accompanies and forms part of this decision notice. Release date: 09 July 2026