How independent can an employee really be?
The recent decision of the First-tier Tribunal in Furukawa Electric Europe Ltd v HMRC [2012] UKFTT 129 (TC) sheds some helpful light on the approach adopted by the Tribunal when a taxpayer seeks to adduce the expert evidence of an employee.
As part of its decision the Tribunal had to decide how much weight if any to give to the expert evidence of two individuals who were employed by companies associated with the appellant taxpayer. The taxpayer did not claim that their evidence was ‘independent expert evidence’ as such but invited the Tribunal to place significant weight on the opinion evidence which they gave. HMRC argued that no weight at all should be given to their...
