The High Court has refused the Revenue Commissioners’ application to put the transcript of evidence before the Appeal Commissioners into a tax appeal by way of case stated. The court also refused to amend the case stated to include the transcript or remit it to the Appeal Commissioners for that purpose.
The application arose from Revenue’s appeal against a 21 May 2020 determination concerning voluntary partner retirement payments made by Deloitte. The underlying dispute is whether those payments could be deducted in calculating the partnership’s taxable profits. Deloitte argued before the Appeal Commissioners that they were normal trading expenses incurred wholly and exclusively for the business. Revenue contended they were, in substance, allocations of partnership profits to retiring partners.
The appeal before the High Court concerned points of law. The court explained that, in general, it should decide those points from the case stated, which sets out the Appeal Commissioners’ material findings, the parties’ arguments and the determination. A transcript may be relevant where an appeal specifically challenges a primary finding of fact on the ground that there was no evidence to support it. In that situation, the relevant evidence should be included in the case stated or formally exhibited to it.
Revenue relied on a question asking whether the Appeal Commissioner erred in finding that the payments had a sole business objective, including whether the finding was one no reasonable Appeal Commissioner could have made. The judge found the wording ambiguous. It did not clearly identify a challenge that a particular primary finding had been made without evidential support. At the hearing, Revenue did not identify which findings it sought to challenge on that basis.
The judge also noted that Revenue had not sought to include the transcript when making representations on the draft case stated, and its written submissions did not challenge the relevant findings as unsupported by evidence. The appeal instead appeared to concern the inferences drawn from the findings already set out in the case stated.
The court therefore concluded that the case stated did not raise a legal issue requiring the transcript. It refused all three forms of relief sought. The judge did not decide whether Revenue could later apply to amend the questions of law, or whether such an application would be allowed.