Old PAYE reference used by new business

The taxpayer sold their business to an employee in February 2018. The agents who acted for both the old and new owners continued to use the existing PAYE reference before a new reference was obtained in December 2019.

The facts are unclear but broadly HMRC pursued the taxpayer for PAYE liabilities return on the old PAYE number.

The taxpayer appealed to First-tier Tribunal to ‘solve’ the issue with HMRC. Unfortunately the judge was unable to do this. She explained that her powers were limited to those set out in law. There had to be an appealable matter that would allow the tribunal to consider the appeal.

In this case the taxpayer – through her agent - had made PAYE submissions and therefore the obligation to make payments arose automatically. HMRC had ‘on numerous occasions’ pointed out that the taxpayer could submit amended returns but the...