Construction conflicts

The appellant Glen Contract Services Limited is a company engaged in commercial cleaning where some of the workload was identified as ‘construction operations’ under FA 2004 s 74.

The company appealed against HMRC’s decision to change the company’s construction industry scheme (CIS) status from ‘gross’ to ‘payment under deduction’.

HMRC initially withdrew the appellant’s gross payment status in 2008 but reinstated it following an appeal saying in a letter that ‘all future appeals will be accepted only if the failure reasons fall under the grounds of “reasonable excuse” as in TMA 1970 s 118(2)’.

However following a series of late tax payments HMRC once again withdrew the appellant’s gross payment status under FA 2004 s 66.

Before the tribunal HMRC argued that the appellant’s...