Existence of real-time information for discovery purposes

The taxpayer was made redundant in November 2013. He had always paid income tax under PAYE and had never been required to file a tax return. However he believed that too much tax had been deducted from his pay he filed a return electronically for 2013-14. As a result HMRC made a refund.

In 2018 after an enquiry into the return HMRC concluded the taxpayer had underpaid tax for the year so it issued a discovery assessment to collect the underpayment and refunded tax.

The taxpayer appealed. He said he had not been able to use payslips to complete his return because these were provided electronically and he no longer had access to the relevant system. He had instead used his P45. But not being familiar with submitting returns he read the online tax return information provided by HMRC and entered £30 000...