Innocent misunderstanding of law is not careless

The taxpayer was a self-employed subcontractor who was engaged by a large engineering company. He claimed the cost of accommodation and travel between his home in Scotland and a hotel in Swindon where he lived while working. HMRC disallowed the claim and also imposed a penalty on the ground the taxpayer was careless to claim these.

The taxpayer appealed.

The First-tier Tribunal said it was possible to see why from the point of view of the taxpayer that his claim was justified. He went to Swindon only to work his hotel appeared to have been ‘for economy rather than comfort’ and he did not claim for evening meals.

The ‘problem’ was the taxpayer’s main reasons to lodge in Swindon was to improve his pay rates and reduce the journey time from his Scottish home. Indeed it would have been ‘completely impractical’ for him to have carried out...