Brexit is not a special circumstance

The taxpayer was in the commercial real estate business and said that as a result of the UK leaving the EU had lost transactions. He was therefore unable to pay his tax on time. He had paid a large sum in interest and penalties in 2018 against which he now appealed.

He argued that the penalties and interest should be repaid to him because ‘the impact of Brexit and the delays caused by government’s failure to implement should be regarded as “special circumstances” meriting a reduction. Both Theresa May (when prime minister) and Baroness Hale (in the Supreme Court) had described Brexit as amounting to “special circumstances” and HMRC should therefore also be required to regard it as such’.

The First-tier Tribunal said the difficulties faced by taxpayer were not unique to him: indeed he had provided HMRC with copies of information from the Bank of...