This week's opinion

Much has been written about Gekko (TC6029) and the justified criticisms of HMRC’s litigation stance made by the judge. But the case has wider implication and shines an important light on the way the system operates in practice. Gekko concerned minor VAT inaccuracies two of which involved sums of £59 and £88. (In the end the tribunal did not accept that there were inaccuracies but that is not relevant to the point I am making here.) Yet these tiny amounts resulted in a flood of paperwork – gobbledegook was how the taxpayer described them – including calculations of penalty abatements and terms for suspension. I mean no disrespect to the taxpayer involved for whom the whole experience was clearly frustrating when I say that there is something almost comically grotesque about seeing calculations working out abatements for disclosure and then multiplying £59 by 15% to reach a penalty of £8.85...