Partial victory

The taxpayer company’s accountant applied to register his client for VAT with effect from its first day of trading on 3 March 2008.

The business’s director called HMRC in June 2009 to claim the firm should not have been registered because its annual sales were below the registration threshold and he was unaware of the application to register made by the accountant.

The director wrote to the Revenue in September 2009 asking that the business be deregistered with effect from 3 March 2008. The tax department said it had no legal power to backdate the registration and instead deregistered the company from September 2009 the date on which the taxman received the director’s letter.

The taxpayer appealed.

The First-tier Tribunal found that the application to register was made correctly – but it should be taken as the date on which the director requested by phone that...