Supreme Court in Derry on share loss relief

Key points

• The taxpayer sold shares for a loss which he claimed against his previous year’s income.
• An explanation was included in the white space of the return.
• HMRC opened a late enquiry saying TMA 1970  
  Sch 1B applied.
• The Supreme Court said this was the wrong process.

There have been calls from some politicians for the UK to use the tax system to stimulate the economy after leaving the EU. I suspect such calls do not revolve around the UK’s claims to have the longest tax code in the world. Currently weighing in at more than 21 000 pages it has prompted many to conclude that tax really is taxing.

Twenty years ago the government launched the tax law rewrite project to address such concerns. However the project was wound up in April 2010.

Even so nine years on we find that no less an authority than the Supreme Court concluded...