Lower tribunal relied on impermissible factors

The taxpayer filed its corporation tax return for the year to 31 March 2010 late and was also late submitting construction industry scheme returns and a P35 return. HMRC accepted that the company had a reasonable excuse for failing to submit contractor’s monthly returns on time but did not consider this was true for the other compliance failures.

The taxpayer appealed but as a result of the decision in JP Whitter (Water Well Engineers) Ltd v CRC [2018] STC 1394 HMRC withdrew the taxpayer’s gross payment status under the construction industry scheme.

The taxpayer did not dispute HMRC’s decision to cancel its registration in 2012 on the basis of its compliance failures but said the department’s proposal to withdraw gross payment status eight years later in 2020 was wrong. Further it currently satisfied all of the requirements to be granted gross payment status and...