Terence Frederick Hicks & Helen Hicks T/A Parc Golf Centre v Commissioners of Customs and Excise

Facts

The appellants, Terence Frederick Hicks and Helen Hicks, carried on business in partnership as Parc Golf Centre near Newport, Gwent. In September 1997 officers visiting the premises noted that income from membership, green fees and range fees had been treated as exempt. Assessments to tax and to misdeclaration penalties were raised. The appellants contended that the club was a non-profit-making body entitled to exemption under Group 13 of Schedule 9 to the Value Added Tax Act 1994; the Commissioners' case was that the club made no supplies and that the appellants traded as partners for profit. An agreement under section 85 of the Value Added Tax Act 1994 was eventually entered into, mitigating the misdeclaration penalties to nil and maintaining tax of £30,434 the subject of a voluntary disclosure, leaving only the assessment for the period 12/94, in the sum of £3,065, in dispute. That assessment was one of eleven contained in a notice of assessment dated 13 January 1998, generated from an internal form VAT 641 of nineteen lines. The form was signed by the assessing officer on 24 December 1997 and by the check officer in December 1997, but was countersigned only on 2 January 1998, that countersignature being required because line 19 carried a misdeclaration penalty inhibit.