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Forum Home  →  Discussion  →  Income support, JSA and tax credits  →  Thread

self employed commercial enterprise—, appeal

SocSec
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welfare benefits/citizens advice//ashfield

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Total Posts: 277

Joined: 11 July 2013

Just won my appeal hearing on the hmrc self-employed commercial enterprise issue, hmrc have trawling self-employed claims to weed out any that are ““non-commercial” The use case law from income tax legislation to argue their point, any way the tribunal accepted that my client does operate on a commercial basis.
HMRC are using similar tactics to the living together cases, i.e. stop the award and get the claimant to prove they are eligible.  And of course “commercial” is defined very well in law so they just hope their argument sticks.
I found a couple of tax law cases that supported my client and they outweighed the hmrc today

Ruth Knox
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Vauxhall Law Centre

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Total Posts: 551

Joined: 27 January 2014

I think this is going to be an increasing problem. As you say, HMRC tend to make a decision and place to burden of proof on the claimant. Could you give us a reference for the tax law cases you cited?  I think this might be a valuable line to use. 

 

Advice NI
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Head of policy - Advice NI

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Total Posts: 51

Joined: 17 June 2010

Hi there, we are noticing more cases where HMRC are disputing ‘commercial viability’ re tax credit cases. Does anyone have links to caselaw on this issue, Very many thanks, Kevin