Forces exclusion confirmed as not applying

The taxpayer and his wife bought two properties: one in February 2016 and the other in May 2018. He submitted stamp duty land tax returns for each house but later asked to amend them to claim refunds on the basis that the visiting forces exclusion under FA 1960 s 74A applied.

The First-tier Tribunal decided he was not entitled to the exclusion because it applied only collectively to visiting forces. It was not available to individual members for the purchase of private homes. The taxpayer appealed.

The Upper Tribunal refused permission to appeal on the grounds there was no real prospect of success. It found the First-tier Tribunal had not erred in its construction of s 74A. The judge said it ‘may be arguable that there is nothing within the language of s 74A(2) that restricts who may undertake or enter into the relevant land transaction’. For example...