Samuel and Helen Moore (t/a Moore Farms) v HMRC

In Samuel and Helen Moore (t/a Moore Farms) v HMRC [2022] UKFTT 411 (TC) (7 September) the FTT decided in favour of HMRC denying a late appeal despite accepting that the taxpayer had a strong case in law. Publication of a new authority prompted the late appeal but this was held as insufficient reason for not making a timely appeal.

HMRC unilaterally cancelled Moore Farms’ agricultural flat rate scheme (AFRS) certificate in July 2013. At the time Moore Farms was of the opinion that a challenge to HMRC’s position was unlikely to succeed. HMRC considered that it had authority to exclude taxpayers from AFRS. 

Late in 2017 the CJEU in Shields & Sons Partnership v HMRC (Case C-262/16) decided that HMRC had been incorrect as a matter of law in cancelling Shields’ AFRS certificate. Moore Farms had therefore...