Vanessa Cristini v The Commissioners for HMRC

This decision notice sets out the Tribunal’s decision in respect of an application made by HMRC, seeking further and better particulars of the Appellant’s grounds of appeal. The application is opposed by the Appellant.

In these proceedings, the Appellant filed two notices of appeal on 23 September 2024. These appeals are against HMRC’s decision to raise assessments to recover disputed output tax totalling £120,796.

With her appeal, the Appellant provided copies of two HMRC decision letters. One of these letters (dated 11 September 2024) notified the Appellant that assessments had been raised for the periods 06/20 to 06/24. In the other HMRC decision letter (dated 9 September 2024), HMRC set out their understanding that the Appellant sold flooring to its customers but that the parties were in disagreement about whether the Appellant was an agent, introducing self-employed flooring fitters who then supplied flooring fitting services directly to those customers, or whether the Appellant acted as a principal in the supply of floor fitting services. In this letter, HMRC set out what they understood to be the relevant facts (in 15 paragraphs), the relevant legal principles (12 paragraphs), cited eight decided cases they understood to be relevant, set out what they understood to be the Appellant’s arguments (six paragraphs) and concluded with their analysis (22 paragraphs). The letter ended with an explanation of the consequences of the decision HMRC had reached (two paragraphs) and how the Appellant could appeal against HMRC’s decision.

The same grounds of appeal were set out in each of the two notices of appeal filed by the Appellant. These grounds, in their entirety, are:

In the section of the Notice of Appeal form where an appellant is asked to set out the outcome they seek, the Appellant stated that she wanted:

The Appellant’s agent also provided copies of three letters which he had sent to HMRC on the same date that he had sent the Appellant’s appeals to the Tribunal. In one of these letters the agent stated:

The agent then went on to ask HMRC to agree that the appeal should proceed without payment of the amount in dispute, and to accept that the Appellant would suffer hardship.

In each of the other two covering letters, the agent stated:

The Tribunal treated these two appeals as one appeal against all assessments for 06/20 to 06/24, and allocated one Tribunal reference number. On 4 December 2024, the Tribunal acknowledged to the Appellant that it had received the appeal, and served a copy of the appeal upon HMRC, noting that hardship was engaged and directing HMRC to provide its decision on hardship to the Tribunal.

On 4 February 2025, the Appellant applied to the Tribunal for her hardship application to HMRC to be allowed by the Tribunal. This application to the Tribunal was made on the basis that HMRC had asked for further information from the Appellant to make their decision, and the Appellant considered the extent of HMRC’s request to be “virtually a full audit”. The Appellant noted that the expense, and time, of providing this information to HMRC was impractical.

On 6 February 2025, HMRC formally opposed the Appellant’s hardship application. The Tribunal acknowledged this opposition on 7 March 2025, and issued directions to enable the issue of hardship to be decided by the Tribunal. Both parties began to comply with the Tribunal Directions.

On 16 May 2025, the Appellant sought to have HMRC barred from proceedings, and for the appeal to proceed to substantive hearing without the issue of hardship being resolved. This application was based upon the Appellant’s misunderstanding of whether HMRC had complied with the Tribunal directions. As HMRC had complied in full with the directions issued, the Appellant’s application was refused by me on 14 July 2025.

On 15 July 2025, the Appellant provided the Tribunal with confirmation that on 7 July 2025, she had deposited the tax in dispute instead of continuing to the hearing of her contested application for hardship.

Later on, on 15 July 2025, HMRC made an application for this appeal to be stayed until the outcome of the appeal by United Carpets Franchisor Limited was known. HMRC noted that the appeal by United Carpets had been heard on 14 May 2025. Within this application for a stay, HMRC also noted that the Appellant’s grounds of appeal did not particularise in sufficient detail either the legal arguments relied upon, or the background facts that underpinned those legal arguments.

On 28 July 2025, the Appellant opposed HMRC’s application for a stay, arguing that she had to service the loan she had taken out to pay the tax in dispute and that the delay was adversely affecting her health so she did not want any further delay.

The opposed stay application was referred to Judge Brown KC who, on 5 August 2025, refused the application on the basis that this Tribunal had issued its decision in United Carpets on 24 July 2025, 12 days earlier days earlier. HMRC were directed to provide their Statement of Case within 60 days of the United Carpets decision (i.e. by 22 September 2025).

On 6 August 2025, HMRC applied for this appeal to be stayed until their policy team had made a decision about whether to seek permission to appeal against the decision in United Carpets. This application was opposed by the Appellant on 11 August 2025. On 29 August 2025, Judge Blackwell refused HMRC’s application.

On 3 September 2025, HMRC applied for further and better particulars of the Appellant’s grounds of appeal. This is the application that is the subject of this decision notice. On 20 September 2025, the Appellant opposed HMRC’s application for further and better particulars on the basis that HMRC were trying to “manipulate the Tax Tribunal system” to delay matters, that she had received late payment penalties and that she would also incur more interest if there was further delay.

On 29 September 2025, HMRC responded to note that they were not trying to manipulate or stall, and that they had highlighted the lack of sufficient detail in the grounds in July 2025. HMRC noted that once further and better particulars had been provided, it would be possible to establish whether this appeal should be stood behind the appeal of Tapi Carpets and Flooring Limited, which was likely to be heard in early 2026. The Appellant replied on 1 October 2025, making clear that she would oppose a stay behind Tapi Carpets. The Appellant concluded her opposition:

There was then some delay on the part of the Tribunal, for which I apologise. On 21 January 2026, Judge Williams informed the parties that unless either party requested an oral hearing, then HMRC’s application would be decided by a judge on the papers. No response was received from either party.

In Rapid Brickwork Limited (in liquidation) v HMRC [2015] UKFTT 0190 (TC), Judge Redston set out the following:

In Priestley v HMRC [2025] UKFTT 00876 (TC), Judge Popplewell stated:

As both of these cases explain, an appellant’s grounds of appeal serve the function of setting out the basis on which that appellant is challenging HMRC’s decision.

Thus, an appellant’s grounds of appeal should set out the facts that that appellant relies upon (which may be the same as, or different from, the facts relied upon by HMRC), the law that that appellant considers to be relevant to the dispute (which may not be the same as the legislation and cases relied upon by HMRC) and that appellant’s reasons for considering HMRC to have made an error of fact and/or law in reaching its decisions.

Unfortunately for the Appellant, Rapid Brickwork and Priestley highlight the fallacy in the Appellant’s assertion on 1 October 2025 that HMRC’s statement of case should simply set out why HMRC reached a conclusion that led to the raising of an assessment. HMRC have already explained why they reached their conclusion – the 9 September 2024 letter from HMRC to the Appellant sets out the facts as HMRC understand them, and how HMRC have applied the law, as they understand it, to those facts.

An appellant is required to particularise their grounds of appeal before HMRC provide their Statement of Case because HMRC’s Statement of Case is a response to the grounds that have been pleaded.

Applying the Rapid Brickwork principles to this appeal, appropriately particularised grounds of appeal from the Appellant are required so that HMRC understand the basis of the Appellant’s challenge to the conclusions set out by HMRC in their September 2024 decision letters.

I need now to consider whether the current grounds of appeal filed by this Appellant are sufficient for this purpose, or whether, as HMRC argue, further and better particulars should be directed.

In her current grounds, the Appellant states that HMRC have:

However, the Appellant does not explain what those fundamental principles are, or how taking those principles into account would lead to a conclusion that is different from the conclusion HMRC have reached. The Appellant also does not state which facts have been misrepresented or what she believes the true facts to be, or how those facts would lead to a different conclusion.

I agree with Judge Redston comments in Rapid Brickwork that HMRC should not be expected to comb through previous correspondence to understand which grounds an appellant is relying upon before the Tribunal. Nevertheless, I consider it can be appropriate for commentary in a covering letter, sent with a Notice of Appeal, to be considered as supplementing otherwise sparse grounds of appeal. Here, in his covering letter, the Appellant’s agent states that:

However, the agent does not explain which figures used by HMRC are incorrect, what he considers the correct figures to be, or how using the correct figures would affect the assessments raised by HMRC.

I conclude that HMRC currently cannot know from the pleaded grounds whether the Appellant agrees with some, all or any the facts HMRC have presented, or whether the Appellant agrees on the relevance of some, all or any of the legislation and case-law relied upon by HMRC. The Appellant has failed to specify in sufficient detail any basis on which she considers HMRC’s decision to be incorrect – it follows that HMRC cannot know the Appellant’s case.

The basis on which the Appellant has opposed HMRC’s application is that she perceives HMRC to be stalling and manipulating the proceedings.

I appreciate that the Appellant has been unwell and that the stress of these proceedings is further affecting her health. The Appellant has been guided by an agent but I understand that the Tribunal proceedings must appear unnecessarily lengthy to anyone who does not have prior experience of litigation. I am sorry that the Tribunal’s own delay has contributed to the time taken for this appeal to progress.

The Appellant has suggested that if HMRC were genuinely concerned about the insufficiency of her pleadings then they would have raised this at the earliest opportunity. However, in calculating the time taken by HMRC to raise this issue, the Appellant has not taken into account the very limited jurisdiction of the Tribunal when there is an outstanding hardship application. Until the issue of hardship is resolved, the Tribunal’s powers extend only to deciding the issue of hardship. It is only in deciding a hardship application that the appeal is either admitted for substantive consideration, or not admitted. HMRC were entitled to focus solely upon the issue of hardship until they knew whether the Appellant’s appeal would be admitted for consideration, and thus progress.

In this case, hardship was resolved on 15 July 2025, when the Appellant provided the Tribunal with evidence that she had deposited the amount in dispute. HMRC first raised the issue of the insufficiency of the pleadings in their application, made just five hours and 14 minutes later. That application was for a stay behind United Carpets, rather than further and better particulars, and (with the benefit of hindsight) HMRC might wish that they had chosen to focus upon the insufficiency of the pleadings at that time, in preference to seeking a stay. However, I do not consider that HMRC can fairly be accused of failing to bring this issue to the Appellant’s attention at the earliest opportunity.

Moreover, even if the Appellant was justified in criticising HMRC for delay, that would not remedy the deficiencies in her own pleadings. Delay on the part of HMRC would not be a good reason to refuse HMRC’s application for a direction that further and better particulars be provided when the grounds in question are insufficient.

For the reasons set out above, I agree with HMRC that further and better particulars are required, and so HMRC’s application is allowed. Directions are issued separately requiring appropriate grounds of appeal to be provided (and seeking clarification of an unrelated point) so that this appeal can progress.

This document contains full findings of fact and reasons for the decision. Any party dissatisfied with this decision has a right to apply for permission to appeal against it pursuant to Rule 39 of the Tribunal Procedure (First-tier Tribunal) (Tax Chamber) Rules 2009. The application must be received by this Tribunal not later than 56 days after this decision is sent to that party. The parties are referred to “Guidance to accompany a Decision from the First-tier Tribunal (Tax Chamber)” which accompanies and forms part of this decision notice.