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The taxpayer company, which registered as an employer in March 2010, believed its 2009/10 P35 return had been filed online successfully in April 2010: an email acknowledgment of receipt had been delivered by HMRC.
Five months later, in September, the business received a late-filing penalty of £400.
The company’s agent appealed and sent a copy of the Revenue’s email, which the department claimed may have been a test communication. The agent said this reasoning was ‘not good enough’.
The First-tier Tribunal said the burden of proof in a penalty case lay with the taxman. The judge decided on the balance of probabilities that the return had been delivered in time to meet the deadline, regardless of the fact it was not stored as a live submission on HMRC’s computer.
The taxpayer’s appeal was allowed.
