The Tribunal’s decision was been made difficult by the fact that HMRC had made no other enquiries in relation to information that might support their case. However, the active partner in the business who dealt with HMRC did not assist the appellant’s case by having been far from forthcoming in his meetings with HMRC and also by refusing to attend the hearing. 

The appellant put forward a number of reasons for the apparent under declaration which lacked plausibility. The most unusual one was that following a fire in 2002, the appellant had found that staff were bringing in their own chicken, cooking it on the appellant’s equipment and selling it and keeping the proceeds. It was suggested that the staff had undertaken the same practice since 2005. The appellant suggested that neither he nor his partner were generally on the premises during the bulk of the day, so that he would not have known whether this practice had re-commenced.