Mohammad Muhsen Yaqoobi lived in London until the 2020/21 tax year and had filed tax returns in that and previous years for the small income he received from renting out a property. However, at some time after April 2021 he moved to Jordan. Having done so, and knowing that his UK property income was below his personal allowance, he assumed he was no longer liable to file a self-assessment tax return. He also did not realise he was obliged to report his movements to HMRC and never received any notices from HMRC due to living abroad at an address where he could not be reached.
Eventually, HMRC contacted him through his correspondence address in London and served him with a notice to file his self-assessment for 2020/21. He did this electronically on 10 February 2023: some 375 days late. HMRC duly served him with late-filing penalty notices amounting to GBP1,600, consisting of the initial GBP100 penalty; daily penalties of GBP10 a day amounting to GBP900; and two GBP300 penalties for filing six months and 12 months late.
Yaqoobi appealed, stating he was not legally required to submit a 2020/21 self-assessment tax return because he did not receive notice from HMRC to do so. He claimed a 'reasonable excuse' in that he was living abroad and had no tax liability for that tax year; was unreachable due to the lack of internet access abroad; was unable to return to the UK due to the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions; and there were postal delays that could not be prevented.
The FTT rejected his appeal. HMRC's contractor had posted a notice to his last known place of residence in April 2021 and HMRC had no record of this notice being returned undelivered, so it was deemed to have been served on him. The fact that he did not physically receive the notice was not relevant. He had not provided any evidence that there were postal delays; he did not receive his post because he had not given HMRC his overseas postal address.
Moreover, it said, Yaqoobi's defence of ignorance of his filing obligations was not a reasonable excuse. The Upper Tax Tribunal's ruling in the Perrin case (2018 UKUT 156 TCC) established that it was 'a matter of judgment for the FTT in each case whether it was objectively reasonable for the particular taxpayer, in the circumstances of the case, to have been ignorant of the requirement in question, and for how long.' It was not reasonable for Yaqoobi to assume that he would not need to declare his UK rental income in a self-assessment tax return simply because he was no longer resident in the UK and his UK rental income was below his personal allowance. He should have carried out an internet search to establish the filing obligations of overseas landlords of UK property, and moreover he should have notified HMRC that he was leaving the UK before moving to Jordan.
'A diligent taxpayer would have put arrangements in place before he left the UK to ensure that his tax affairs were dealt with while he was abroad', said the FTT (Yaqoobi v HMRC, 2024 UKFTT 1160 TC).
Sources：【2025/01/13 BAILII】