This was the hearing before the Upper Tribunal of the appellants’ claims for overpayment relief from SDLT under paragraph 34 Schedule 10 FA 2003 in circumstances where the appellants had failed to claim Multiple Dwellings Relief (“MDR”) in their return or in an amendment to their return, within 12 months of the filing date for their returns, as required by section 58D FA 2003.
For the purpose of this appeal, it was assumed that the taxpayers had not known about the relief and that they would have been entitled to the relief had they claimed it in time. It was held that although in such circumstances there had been an overpayment of SDLT for the purpose of paragraph 34 Schedule 10 FA 2003, Case A in paragraph 34A (2) Schedule 10 FA 2003 excluded the relief for overpayment because there had been a “mistake” consisting of a failure to make a claim and the taxpayer’s awareness or knowledge of the availability of MDR was not relevant to whether or not there had been a “mistake”. The UT said that it would be difficult to envisage circumstances where the failure to make a claim for MDR in the original return would be anything other than a “mistake” and as such, caught by Case A.
The UT rejected the appellants’ argument that if Case A blocked relief for any failure to make a claim in the return then the word “mistake” in Case A was otiose, reasoning at [45] that “The legislation must be construed in its context,without an excessive focus on single words.”
You can read the full decision here.