Discovery assessment was valid

The taxpayer acquired a property and a form TR1 confirmed that the property had been transferred to him for a consideration of £542 500.

In his a stamp duty land tax return he reported the consideration for the purchase as £120 000 with no SDLT therefore due.

HMRC wrote the taxpayer saying there was a discrepancy and issued a discovery assessment against which the taxpayer appealed. He accepted that if the assessment was found to be valid the tax charged was correct.

The First-tier Tribunal said HMRC’s procedures for discovery assessments were ‘closely controlled’. On the taxpayer’s assertion that the officer raising the assessment should be named the tribunal agreed that an officer must have made the discovery but not that it was ‘inevitably the case that the assessment is not valid if the officer cannot be identified within the appeal’. The legislation did not require that the...