This week's opinion

I am constantly impressed by the care and dedication taken by the First-tier Tribunal in determining appeals. Take the recent decision in Driessche (TC5194).

The appeal was against excise and customs duty penalties for the import of tobacco. The amount £2 181 was relatively small (though not to the taxpayer) but the case involved some difficult issues both of fact and of law. HMRC argued that the import was from outside the EU; the taxpayer said that it was from within the EU. The crux of the issue was whether the airport from which the taxpayer travelled was in the EU. The tribunal had to consider a whole host of EU documents and the French-Swiss airport convention of 1949. It also looked in detail at questions of fact and the burden of proof.

The decision which runs to 250 paragraphs is unlikely to be of direct...