The High Court held that HMRC’s interpretation of extra-statutory concession B18 was to be preferred to the claimants’, and that the benefit of the concession was restricted to the extent that the payment was out of income which arose to the trustees not earlier than six years before the end of the tax year in which the payment was made. 

The claimants were the UK resident beneficiaries of an unapproved retirement benefit scheme established by a company of which they were directors. The trustees, who were Guernsey resident for tax purposes, received UK source interest, on which they paid income tax. 

In September 2018, the claimants’ accountants wrote to HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) seeking confirmation that extra-statutory concession