Mark Stewart Wyatt was assessed against his earnings through property rental and property development for the 2007-08 and 2009-10 tax years. HMRC considered Wyatt had attained a profit in both years. Ronald Wyatt, the appellant’s father represented his son at the hearing.

However, it took HMRC until 2016 to contact Wyatt about this. Paul Sanders, investigating officer for HMRC wrote to Wyatt on 16 March 2016, saying: ‘I propose to issue an estimated assessment for the tax year 2009/10 to cover potential lost duties for income tax and/or capital gains, in respect of the disposal of the two properties referred to above.’

Then, two years later in 2018 Sanders wrote again to the taxpayer issuing tax calculations for income tax and capital gains. It then took until September for all the assessments to be passed on to Wyatt.