TV presenter Lorraine Kelly has won an appeal at a First Tier Tribunal (FTT) over a £1.2m demand for unpaid income tax and National Insurance contributions (NICs) arising from a challenge to her employment status under IR35

Andrew Hubbard, tax consultant and partner at RSM, considers a recent case on whether a tractor was a utensil for tax relief purposes, which raised an interesting point of testing legislation in court to establish the true meaning of particular words

A taxpayer seeking to reclaim around £2,300 under the DIY house-builders scheme for fitting electric blinds to an eco-building has had his claim denied at a First Tier Tribunal (FTT), on the grounds that these were not items which are ordinarily incorporated into buildings of this kind

HMRC has won a longstanding legal challenge over whether or not PwC as administrators to collapsed bank Lehman Brothers International (Europe) (LBIE) should deduct income tax from some £5bn of interest payable to creditors, after the Supreme Court ruled in its favour

Sarah Kay, tax writer at Croner-i, considers an Upper Tribunal case where care services where taxable in England but exempt in Scotland and Northern Ireland due to different VAT rules and a variance in statutory regulation

HMRC is highlighting changes to the VAT treatment of personal contract purchases (PCP) and similar contracts, which were previously viewed as supplies of goods and a separate supply of credit, but which in some instances are now considered to be a single supply of taxable leasing services

In this month’s round up of tax developments, Harry Potter star loses appeal, HMRC fines homeless man, landmark overseas powers case, July deadline for first MTD, child benefit eligibility warning, Brexit VAT expenses deadline, probate fees hike

In this month’s roundup of significant VAT cases, Graham Elliott CTA (Fellow), VAT specialist at Cambridge Consultancy, analyses fragmentation and VAT registration in Darren Vaughan, deemed taxable supply under schedule 10 in Balhousie and flat rate in Apex Vehicle Management

The two directors of a haulage company have won a tribunal appeal against HMRC’s claim that they had not paid the correct income tax on the use of leased company cars and the use of fuel cards, after the judge ruled payments from the directors’ loan account should be taken into consideration

A European Commission ruling that Belgium’s ‘excess profit’ tax scheme amounted to €700m of illegal state aid to Belgian subsidiaries of multinational companies has been overturned in the highest EU court, on the grounds that it was an umbrella scheme and not clearly defined

UBS has been fined a record €3.7bn (£3.2bn) by a French court on tax evasion and money-laundering charges, after allegations the Swiss bank illegally helped French clients hide assets worth €10bn from the tax authorities between 2004 and 2012

A number of tax tribunal decisions every year revolve around HMRC’s interpretation of reasonable excuse, but it is the Upper Tribunal decisions which are important to watch. Meg Wilson CTA, specialist tax writer at Croner-i Tax and Accounting, examines the options for taxpayers considering an appeal and use of the reasonable excuse defence

HMRC’s behaviour has been described as a ‘scandal’ and ‘ridiculous’ after it issued £1,600 in fines to a homeless man who had filed his self assessment tax return late, with the tax authority claiming the man’s circumstances were not ‘special’

A First Tier Tribunal (FTT) has refused an unusual application by HMRC for an order that a scheme included ‘notifiable’ arrangements under disclosure of tax avoidance schemes (DOTAS) rules, on the grounds that the adviser who provided administration services for the scheme was not a promoter, as HMRC claimed, under the terms of the legislation

Middlesbrough football club has been cleared of failing to pay staff the national minimum wage (NMW), after winning its case against HMRC at an employment tribunal, which found that the deductions made at the request of the employees to spread the payments for season cards were permitted under the legislation