In appeals against First-tier Tribunal decisions refusing the appellants permission to appeal out of time, the Upper Tribunal held that when an appeal concerned a company in liquidation, there was no duty on the tribunal to consider practical difficulties that generally arose from the liquidation. 

The first appellant (SU) was the director-shareholder of the second appellant, a company (K), which ran a restaurant business. HMRC imposed VAT and corporation tax assessments and deliberate inaccuracy penalties on K, based on HMRC’s view that sales had been suppressed over a number of years.  

Shortly afterwards, K went into creditors’ voluntary winding-up. HMRC imposed personal liability notices (PLNs) on SU. SU and K’s liquidators lodged their respective appeals with the tribunal between 16 and 18 months outside the 30-day time limit. In both appeals, it was argued there was a good explanation for the late filing,