HMRC Gets the Chop: Hairdresser Slices Through VAT Assessment Shocker

Hello, you long-suffering taxpayers. Premium rate music still on endless loop while you wait for someone in Newcastle to tell you they can’t find your file? Spare a thought for one plucky hairdresser who’s just given HMRC the shortest-back-and-sides of its miserable life.

In a decision that should be framed above every salon mirror in the land, the First-tier Tribunal has booted HMRC’s £40k-plus VAT assessment straight into the bin. Why? Because our beloved Revenue, in its infinite wisdom, had already issued a binding closure notice on an income tax enquiry… then turned round and tried to raise a revised VAT assessment on the very same turnover figures. You couldn’t make it up. Actually, they did.

The law is crystal clear (even when HMRC pretends it’s written in ancient Sumerian): once you issue a closure notice bringing an income tax enquiry to an end, you can’t then reopen the same turnover numbers for VAT unless you jump through very specific hoops. Hoops that, surprise surprise, HMRC forgot even existed. The Tribunal basically told them: “You closed it, you own it, now sod off.”

Result? VAT assessment cancelled in full. Interest and penalties wiped. Hairdresser walks away looking sharper than a fresh fade.

This isn’t just a win for one scissor-wielding hero; it’s a massive middle finger to HMRC’s favourite game: “Let’s assess everything twice and argue about it for five years.” When will these clowns learn that “closure” actually means closed?

Tax does have to be taxing.
Unfortunately, HMRC seem determined to make it downright bloody impossible.

Amazon “Treat Yourself After Beating The Taxman” Suggestions

• Wahl Cordless Super Taper – because nothing says “I just rinsed HMRC” like a proper sharp clipper
• Andis Master Clipper – the Rolls-Royce of fade machines
• BarberCape Professional Waterproof Cape – keep the clippings off while you count your refunded VAT
• The Salon Business Bible – because now you’ve got spare cash to grow the empire
• “F*ck You Money” jar – start filling it with the money HMRC just tried to nick

HMRC Is Shite (www.hmrcisshite.com), also available via the domain www.hmrconline.com, is brought to you by www.kenfrost.com "The Living Brand"

HMRC To Bin Letters

 

In a bid to slash print and postage costs by £50m and drag HMRC communications into the 21st century, letters will no longer be sent out automatically to taxpayers from next spring. Email alerts will be sent to them, notifying them of new documents in their personal tax accounts or the HMRC app instead. 

As part of HMRC’s ambitious digital by default programme, which envisages 90% of HMRC interactions with taxpayers being online or digital only by 2029-30 tax year, the Budget papers confirmed a major shift to digital by default had been signed off by the government, which is starting sooner than expected.

This means that the days of posted brown letters from HMRC are very much numbered with only the ‘digitally excluded’ or those who actively opt out of digital still able to receive old school posted letters, starting in spring 2026.

In one sense this might be an improvement, given that snail mail comms with HMRC seems to take a year or so. However, those who are not digitally savvy may well face problems with this new high tech vision of HMRC's. 

In June I warned of the bureaucratic nightmare that HMRC's rush to digital will unleash. 

HMRC’s MTD is a self-inflicted wound on the UK’s entrepreneurial spirit, and taxpayers are the ones left bleeding.

Various guides to Making Tax Digital can be found here. 

HMRC Is Shite (www.hmrcisshite.com), also available via the domain www.hmrconline.com, is brought to you by www.kenfrost.com "The Living Brand"