Lack of carelessness

The taxpayer filed his 2010/11 self-assessment tax return online in January 2012. HMRC opened an enquiry because he had not included two sources of employment income totalling about £200 000.

He taxpayer had to pay additional tax of £3 241 as a result and the Revenue issued a penalty for a prompted careless inaccuracy.

The taxpayer appealed saying had included the employments in his return but an error in the tax department’s system failed to capture the details.

HMRC argued that the taxpayer had not included the information because he thought his employer would provide details and had deducted the tax due.

The officer claimed the taxpayer had been careless not to refer to the return guidance there were no faults in the department’s system and the return would have been rejected had it been corrupted during completion.

The First-tier Tribunal said the burden of...