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Sadiya Choudhury

  • Call: 2002

Overview

Sadiya was called to the Bar in 2002 and became a member of Chambers following completion of her second six pupillage in 2003. She has a broad advisory and litigation practice across all areas of direct and indirect tax law. She has appeared by herself and as a junior in several cases in the specialist tax tribunals as well as courts at all levels.

Sadiya has been a member of the Attorney General’s a Panel since September 2021 and is regularly instructed by HMRC, the National Crime Agency and other government departments. She is qualified to accept instructions under the Public Access scheme.

She has a particular interest in excise and customs duties.  She also accepts instructions in relation to tax issues which have arisen in another area of the law, recent examples including insolvency (personal and corporate) and ancillary relief proceedings. She has experience of immigration matters and has appeared before the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal on behalf of the government. She has considerable experience of judicial review proceedings for both taxpayers and HMRC.

A copy of Sadiya's privacy notice can be found here.

Recent cases

Examples of recent cases include:

Rialas v HMRC [2019] UKFTT 520 (TC): whether s. 739 ICTA 1988 applied to the transfer of shares in a UK company

Distinctive Care Ltd v HMRC [2019] EWCA Civ 1010: whether the Tribunal ought to award costs where one party withdrew from an appeal

Warshaw v HMRC [2019] UKFTT 268 (TC): whether non-voting preference shares constituted “ordinary share capital”

Peters v HMRC [2019] UKUT 58 (TCC): whether the Tribunal should exercise its discretion to allow a late appeal

Grint v HMRC [2019] UKUT 28 (TCC): whether a self-employed actor had succeeded in changing his accounting date for income tax purposes

White v HMRC [2018] UKUT 257 (TCC): whether HMRC had opened an enquiry into a claim made outside a return and whether a trading loss had been incurred in respect of irrecoverable loans made to a related company

Thomson and ors v HMRC [2018] UKFTT 396 (TC): whether users of the “Pendulum” scheme were entitled to claim trading losses. This was the first set of appeals to consider the scheme.

R (oao Root2Tax) v First-tier Tribunal (Tax Chamber) v HMRC [2018] EWHC 1254 (Admin): whether the promoter of a tax avoidance scheme which the Tribunal had found ought to have been registered under DOTAS could apply for judicial review of the Tribunal’s decision.

Barclays Wealth Trustees (Jersey) Ltd & anor v HMRC [2017] EWCA Civ 1512: (led by Rupert Baldry KC): whether property added to a settlement after the settlor had become UK deemed domiciled was “excluded property” for IHT purposes

Denley v HMRC [2017] UKUT 340 (TCC): acted pro bono with Thomas Chacko for a taxpayer in an appeal against an excise duty assessment and penalty following the seizure of tobacco in Coquelles, France.

Recent work

Examples of other recent work include:

Income Tax

  • Loan charge
  • PAYE operation
  • Statutory residence test
  • Remittance basis
  • Transfer of assets abroad

Inheritance Tax

  • Drafting wills, trusts and deeds of variation
  • Business property relief/Agricultural property relief
  • Gifts with reservation
  • Conditional exemption

Capital Gains Tax

  • Company re-organisations
  • Entrepreneurs’ relief
  • Transfers of property in ancillary relief proceedings
  • PPR relief
  • Benefits received from offshore trusts

Corporation Tax

  • Capital reduction demergers
  • Loan relationship provisions
  • Loans to participators
  • Transfer pricing
  • Transfers of goodwill

VAT

  • MTIC fraud
  • Option to tax
  • “Best judgment” assessments
  • Classification for zero-rating purposes

SDLT

  • Group relief and application of clawback provisions
  • Exchanges
  • Partnership transfers
  • Linked transactions
  • Sub-sale relief

Excise Duty

  • Detention and seizure of alcohol from a warehouse
  • Condemnation proceedings: alcohol, rebated fuel and vehicles
  • Assessment and penalty proceedings: non-duty paid cigarettes and tobacco
  • Penalty proceedings for irregularities in documentation
  • Seizure of goods subject to CITES

Customs Duty

  • Customs classification
  • Customs value of goods
  • Import quotas
  • Inward processing relief
  • Anti-dumping duty

Insolvency

  • Petition hearings
  • Statutory demand set-aside applications
  • Injunctions to restrain advertisement
  • Setting aside IVAs and CVAs

Procedure

  • Information notices
  • Discovery assessments
  • Late appeals
  • Costs

Publications

Jackson’s Matrimonial Finance (9th Edition): Author of the Taxation chapter

Sadiya also regularly lectures on a range of tax-related issues.

Memberships

Revenue Bar Association

London Common Law and Commercial Bar Association

VAT Practitioners Group

Education

Kinnaird College, Lahore, Pakistan: BSc (Pure Sciences, First)

St Edmund Hall, Oxford: M.A. (Jurisprudence, First)

Inns Court School of Law: Bar Vocational Course (Very Competent)

Denning and Sunley Scholarships, Lincoln’s Inn

Languages

Urdu (bilingual), Hindi, Punjabi

The Legal 500 says...

Tax: VAT
Ranking: Leading Junior Tier 3

‘An extremely effective adviser who is attentive to client needs and very understanding of the way in which their businesses work.’ (2021)

‘Her willingness to assist with complex problems, often at short notice, makes her of invaluable assistance in any tax dispute.’ (2020)

‘She is incredibly knowledgeable when it comes to the relevant tax rules.’ (2019)

 

Related judgements

Related resources

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