Discovery assessments to make good under-assessments resulting from errors were held not to have been validly made, as HMRC had not established that the errors were attributable to the appellant’s careless behaviour.
The appellant’s tax returns for 2009/10 and 2010/11 contained errors: (1) He mistakenly omitted his state pension from both returns; (2) The appellant’s tax return for 2009/10 significantly understated the total for occupational pensions (although he had included the correct amounts for pensions and tax deducted in the ‘white space’ additional information section of the return); (3) His tax return for 2010/11 understated employment earnings and overstated tax deducted.
HMRC issued discovery assessments (under TMA 1970, s 29) for both tax years. The appellant appealed. He contended that he had experienced difficulties in submitting his tax returns online from France, resulting in around
