Has the Court of Session Today Made a Decision Which Will Win HMRC the Big Tax Case?

I know that I am not known for the brevity of my blog posts, especially where I have substantial material to work from.

However I am going to change the habits of a blogging lifetime by writing a short post based on a long piece of source material. I will write at greater length but thought this worthy of comment now.

Remember the “Big Tax Case”? That was known, more formally, as Murray Group Holdings & Ors v Revenue & Customs [2012] UKFTT 692 (TC) (29 October 2012) and the decision can be read in full here.

The Murray Group (and predominantly “Rangers”) “won” the case to the extent that, by a two to one majority, the First Tier Tax Tribunal decided that, except in the cases where the appellant conceded otherwise, the payments which had been made via the Employee Benefit Trust structure by the employer and taken by the employee from the trusts and sub-trusts in the form of loans were not payments subject to Income Tax.

The appeal by HMRC is grinding its way towards a full hearing at the Upper Tier Tribunal and will get there eventually.

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