Graham Roth t/a Phillips Roth & Company v Commissioners for Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs

Facts

Mr Graham Roth, trading as Phillips Roth & Company, appealed to the First-tier Tribunal (Tax Chamber) against three VAT default surcharges imposed by the Commissioners for Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs in respect of the 08/07, 02/08 and 02/09 accounting periods. In each case the VAT return had been signed by Mr Roth only on 6 October 2009 — long after the date on which it was required to be submitted — and received by HMRC on 9 October 2009, and in each case the VAT due was paid late, by instalments, or remained wholly or partly unpaid at the date of the hearing. Mr Roth was no stranger to the regime: between 1992 and 2007 he had incurred more than fifty surcharges, and appeared to have been within an extended surcharge period, charged at the 15% rate, since 1994. The procedural history was unhappy. An earlier tribunal had dismissed the appeal in his absence, but that decision was set aside on his own application; two further hearing dates were postponed at his request, the second on less than fourteen days' notice. He did not attend the hearing on 24 March 2010 either, and gave no notice of his inability to do so until telephoned at his office by a member of the Tribunal, later producing a doctor's certificate for gastroenteritis.