Documents stay under wraps

The taxpayers were the shareholders of SJG a Gibraltar telebetting company and SJA a UK company.

SJA was bought by SJG in February 2000; HMRC raised assessments under TA 1988 s 739 Prevention of avoidance of income tax on the basis there had been a transfer of assets abroad.

The taxpayers appealed saying that avoidance was not a motive of the transfer of the business from SJA to SJG. It was a genuine commercial transaction: the 9% gaming duty on bets placed in the UK made the telebetting business untenable after the High Court ruled in Victor Chandler International v CCE [2000] 2 All ER 315 that use of teletext to promote telebetting outside the UK was effectively within the law.

In support of their appeal they applied for the disclosure of certain documents held by the Revenue.

The First-tier Tribunal...