18881

	VAT — security requirement — Respondents accepting by time of hearing that Appellant’s compliance record satisfactory — requirement of security to be withdrawn — tribunal required to consider conditions at the time security demanded — requirement reasonably imposed — appeal dismissed. 

MANCHESTER TRIBUNAL CENTRE

 
 	
	CATHERINE TSIMBOYKAS t/a STARBRIGHT CLEANING	Appellant

	- and -

	THE COMMISSIONERS OF CUSTOMS AND EXCISE	Respondents

				Tribunal:	Colin Bishopp (Chairman)
						Gillian Pratt	

Sitting in public in Manchester on 1 December 2004

The Appellant did not appear and was not represented

Christopher Owen of the Solicitor’s office of HM Customs and Excise for the Respondents 

	© CROWN COPYRIGHT 2004

DECISION

1.	This is an appeal by Catherine Tsimboykas, who trades as Starbright Cleaning, against a notice of requirement to give security for value added tax, served upon her by the Respondents in accordance with paragraph 4(2)(a) of Schedule 11 to the Value Added Tax Act 1994.  The notice was served on 28 October 2003 and, for reasons of which we are unaware, Mrs Tsimboykas’ appeal has taken an unusually long time to come on for hearing.  The amount of security required was £51,045, if Mrs Tsimboykas were to continue making quarterly returns, or £34,030 if she instead made returns monthly.  
2.	The reasons for the serving of the notice were that Mrs Tsimboykas and members of her family had previously been the officers of companies engaged in the business of cleaning which had entered into insolvent liquidation, owing the Respondents, in the aggregate, a sum in the order of £160,000.  Mrs Tsimboykas’ current business had been taken over by her, as a going concern, from the most recently failed of those companies.  However, Mrs Tsimboykas had since dealt with her accounting for VAT to the Commissioners’ satisfaction, furnishing her returns, with full payment, on time; and the decision had been taken, we were told, to rescind the notice.  Since notices to provide security are, in practice, suspended whilst there is an outstanding appeal, the effect is that Mrs Tsimboykas will not in fact have been required to comply with the notice.  Nevertheless, the test we must apply is whether the notice was properly issued, for which purpose we must examine the circumstances as they were, and were known to the Respondents, at that time.  
3.	The information provided to us by Christopher Owen, who represented the Respondents at the hearing, clearly demonstrated Mrs Tsimboykas’ position with the failed companies, and the magnitude of the aggregate debt.  Mrs Tsimboykas did not attend the hearing and we had no indication of the basis of her challenge, beyond the brief grounds of appeal set out by her solicitors in the notice of appeal, which contended that there were “no reasonable grounds” for the requirement and that the amount was “wholly excessive”.  We are satisfied that there were reasonable grounds for issuing the notice and we are not persuaded that the amount requested was “wholly excessive” since, as is customary in such cases, the calculation of the amount required was based upon Mrs Tsimboykas’ own prediction of her turnover.
4.	Although, for the reasons we have given, this appeal has become somewhat academic, we must nevertheless dismiss it.

COLIN BISHOPP

MAN/03/0797

CHAIRMAN
Release Date: 9 December 2004