The decision is only about whether two schemes, widely marketed by Property 118, should have been notified under Disclosure of Tax Avoidance Schemes (DOTAS) rules. Property 118 did not notify them. HMRC took the view that they should have been and issued scheme reference numbers – DOTAS numbers.

The First Tier Tribunal (FTT) has decided that the schemes were not notifiable under DOTAS and have cancelled the SRNs.

The FTT did not deal with whether the underlying schemes worked or not, less still as to whether they might work for some taxpayers and not for others.

On some points, the FTT agreed with HMRC that conditions for the schemes to be notified were met.