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Expert evidence before the Tax Tribunal

27th Jul 2022
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In a case relating to the exemption of certain financial services under EU law, applicable in the UK, presumably, pre-Brexit, the taxpayer applied for expert evidence to be permitted. The Tribunal commented that there are a number of conflicting FTT decisions on the matter. This was addressed in the previous case of Singleton Birch Ltd (www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKFTT/TC/2021/TC08324.html ).

The Tribunal drew on four principles from the Deloitte LLP case(www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKFTT/TC/2016/TC05231.html ), which gathered principles from previous decisions:

  1. Relevant evidence should be admitted unless there are compelling reasons not to. The prejudice to each party of respectively admitting/not admitting the evidence should be weighed. (Mobile Export 365 and Atlantic Electronic).
  2. An expert’s evidence of opinion is admissible because it is the product of a special expertise which the tribunal does not possess, or even if it does, which is not its function to apply (Hoyle).
  3. Expert reports are not rendered inadmissible because they refer to legislation, matters of law or indeed the very issue before the court or tribunal. Tribunal panels (who are not lay finders of fact) can be credited with the ability to distinguish between inadmissible/admissible matters in a report and to know that they have to reach their own view on the legal question before them. (JP Morgan Chase Bank, and Kennedy)
  4. Even if reports contain inadmissible expert evidence of fact they can be admitted and should be admitted without requiring excision particularly if the admissible/inadmissible evidence of fact is intertwined (Hoyle).

Clearly, in the substantive case, facts are complex; the regulatory regimes are also complex. The Tribunal decided that suitable expert evidence would enable it to decide the case.

The CCLA Investment Management Ltd case is here: www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKFTT/TC/2022/TC08520.html

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