A company director had a reasonable excuse for the late filing of tax returns, as he had no reason to suppose that he would be required to make tax returns in his circumstances.

HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) issued the appellant with self-assessment returns for the tax years 2013/14, 2014/15 and 2015/16 in August 2017. The due date for submitting the returns was 9 November 2017, but the appellant did not submit them until 29 January 2018. HMRC imposed late filing penalties. The appellant appealed.

The appellant stated that he was a chef paid a monthly salary through PAYE and had never previously completed a tax return. He had a property from which he received a small amount of rent but had made very little profit. He referred to an extract from HMRC’s website, which said that individuals must contact HMRC if they had profits from property rental and must report their profits if HMRC asked. However, the only year the appellant made a profit was 2016/17,