Was assessment out of time under 12-month rule?

The only issue of dispute in this appeal was whether an assessment for £345 561 issued by HMRC on 29 April 2019 and relevant to the August 2015 return was out of time under VATA 1994 s 73(6)(b) . The legislation states that an assessment to correct VAT return errors must be issued by HMRC on the later of the following two dates:

• two years after the end of the accounting period being adjusted; or

• one year after the date when an officer had ‘evidence of facts sufficient in the opinion of the commissioners to justify the making of the assessment’.

In this case the second bullet point was the later date so this was the relevant one here.

The HMRC officer first visited the company premises on 16 April 2018 and returned four days later to examine invoices and download general ledger data from the company’s accounting system. On 9...