Self-employed but not taxable

The taxpayer was a non-practising barrister. He worked part-time as an immigration judge for which he was treated as self-employed on the basis he was blind and had to undertake a lot of work from home with the help of a sighted assistant.

After a cross-check of his self assessment returns for the years 2004/05 to 2007/08 HMRC wrote to say he should have registered for VAT in 2006 because his self-employed income had exceeded the registration threshold.

The taxpayer appealed on the grounds he was holding no VAT on behalf of HMRC and he would have to pay VAT from his taxed income.

The First-tier Tribunal noted there were two categories of workers for income tax purposes – employees and office-holders – and said the role of a judge should clearly be classified as office-holder.

It was ‘difficult to understand’ why the taxpayer was held...