Peter Vaines calls for greater security for taxpayers against negligence charges & a dose of common sense
It is a reasonable proposition that a person should not be liable to a penalty when he has relied on professional advice. This was explained in Mariner v HMRC TC 3039 in which the tribunal said that the taxpayer could not be principally or vicariously liable for the negligence of her professional adviser unless the circumstances indicated that the matter was fraught with difficulty and doubt. It was contrary to the very notion of reasonable care that a person who perceives a need to take professional advice can be said to be negligent if she then relies on that advice—even if it turns out to be wrong.
This was not a get out of jail free card because if the taxpayer had reason to believe that the professional adviser may not be correct, he cannot just close his eyes to those doubts and hide behind the adviser.
This was perhaps taken too far in Stratton v HMRC TC 2967, where the tribunal concluded that where
