Amrolia and the principle of finality

It surprises me that so little comment has appeared in these pages and indeed in other professional journals on the implications of the Court of Appeal judgment last year in R (on the application of Amrolia and Ranjit-Singh) v CRC [2020] STC 877. In this article I will illustrate how this decision not only offends the principle of finality which is supposed to underpin the self-assessment regime but also creates serious anomalies some working for and some against HMRC.

The genesis of the case goes back to 2014 when taxpayers who had entered film and other tax planning schemes claimed loss reliefs and obtained repayments whether by way of carry-back or against other income of the year of loss. The claimants argued that HMRC’s only mechanism for recovering over-repayments was an assessment under TMA 1970 s 30 ‘recovery of overpayment of tax ...