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The taxpayer submitted his 2016-17 tax return on paper a year late. HMRC imposed penalties against which the taxpayer appealed.
Claiming reasonable excuse he said HMRC had previously helped him file his returns but the local office had closed. He struggled with online filing and because he did not have a mobile phone had not realised he would not be able to receive an activation code. Further HMRC told him not to worry about the penalties. He considered he had been ‘lulled into’ a false sense of security otherwise he would have ‘done everything in his power to avoid the fines’.
The First-tier Tribunal decided the taxpayer did have a reasonable excuse. The judge accepted his assertion that HMRC had told him he could submit a paper return but not informed him of the penalty consequences for filing 31 October 2017. This was ‘regrettable’.
On HMRC’s statement...
