Late filed non-resident capital gains tax return

The taxpayers emigrated to Canada in 2004. They sold a property in the UK in June 2015 and submitted a non-resident capital gains tax (NRCGT) return in October 2016. They claimed only or main residence relief for the years to 2004 and because the computation showed no gain and no loss there was no tax to pay.

HMRC imposed a late filing penalty on the ground the return should have been filed within 30 days of the sale being finalised. The taxpayers appealed. They said they had submitted the return as soon as they had found out about ‘the new law’ which had ‘implemented a wholly new reporting requirement with an unusual timeframe to report’.

The First-tier Tribunal judge Richard Thomas said the question on the NRCGT return asking for ‘date of disposal’ was not clear because not all taxpayers would realise that in...