K Gordon v The Information Commissioner & HMRC

In K Gordon v The Information Commissioner & HMRC [2022] UKFTT 437 (30 November 2022) the FTT upheld the Information Commissioner’s decision that HMRC was entitled to withhold information in response to a request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOI Act 2000) even though the information was already in the public domain and was no longer confidential.  

Mr Gordon obtained an email from HMRC in response to an initial freedom of information (FOI) request. The email was from HMRC’s counter avoidance unit and related to the loan charge. Certain parts of the email were redacted including the following line: ‘Are we just hoping [REDACTED] will put people off’. Mr Gordon submitted two further FOI requests asking HMRC to provide an unredacted version of the email and after it refused to do so...