Fitzpatrick & Co (Solicitors) v HMRC

In Fitzpatrick & Co (Solicitors) v HMRC (TC01932 – 19 April) a firm of solicitors submitted its partners’ returns electronically in January 2011 and attached a PDF file with the partnership return. HMRC formed the opinion that the submission of an electronic PDF did not comply with the notice given under TMA 1970 s 12AA and imposed penalties under TMA 1970 s 93A. The First-tier Tribunal allowed the firm’s appeal. Judge Hellier held that ‘the documents produced by HMRC do not prescribe the use of third-party software as the only way to make an electronic return. The best that can be said is that they prescribe the making of a return via the internet as constituting an electronic return’. Accordingly the PDF which the firm had submitted ‘was an electronic return for the purpose of section 12AA’.

Read the decision here.