The taxpayer company had filed tax returns for two years late, more than two years after the end of the accounting periods in question.
The returns included claims for capital allowances. At the time the returns were lodged, the capital allowance claims were out of time. But HMRC opened enquiries into the returns. Where an enquiry has been opened into a corporation tax return, the time limit for making capital allowances claims is one month after the end of the enquiry. The question for the FTT was whether the enquiry meant that the claims were in time. The FTT held that it did. The legislation was clear, and excluded enquiries into certain returns (those that had been amended so as to include a capital allowances claim) from the extension of the time limit. Accordingly, the taxpayer’s claims in the present case had been made in time.