Transfers from self-invested personal pension

Mr Clark was a retired businessman. His pension was in a fund established by his employer S which was acquired by the Trinity Mirror Group. It made changes to the pension scheme that would eliminate the requirement for it to make further contributions. This led Mr Clark to set up two self-invested pension schemes (SIPPs). However he decided to transfer the funds held in one of the plans because he was unhappy with the investment returns. Acting on professional financial advice he implemented the transfers in a series of steps. HMRC said the transfers were unauthorised payments (FA 2004 s 208 and 209) and raised assessments.

The First-tier Tribunal agreed with HMRC so the taxpayer appealed to the Upper Tribunal.

The first issue was whether there...