
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
- Kenan Altunis v HMRC8 September 2023
- Delphi Derivatives Ltd v HMRC8 September 2023
- HMRC -v- JASPER ALEXANDER THIRLBY CONRAN26 July 2023
- Peter Marano -and- Commissioners for HM Revenue & Customs8 June 2023
- Spring Capital Ltd v HMRC28 April 2023
- Norton & anr –v- HMRC3 March 2023
- Paul Harrison -v- HMRC8 February 2023
- HMRC -v- BlackRock Holdco 5 LLC; (UT)19 July 2022
- R (oao Clamp and anor) v HMRC; (High Court)23 August 2021
- Sehgal v HMRC; (UT)29 June 2021
- Euromoney v HMRC; (FTT)4 March 2021
- Project Blue Ltd v HMRC (No 2); FTT24 November 2020
- BlackRock v HMRC; (FTT)3 November 2020
- Stirling Jewellers v HMRC; (UT)13 August 2020
- R (oao (1) John Boulting (2) PSC Training and Development Group Ltd) v HMRC; (High Court)12 August 2020
- R (oao Zeeman and Murphy) v HMRC; (High Court)3 April 2020
- Sherrington, Metcalfe and Waite v HMRC; (FTT)9 March 2020
- R (oao Cartref and others) v HMRC; (High Court)13 December 2019
- Court of Appeal Decision: Distinctive Care Limited v HMRC13 June 2019
- FTT Decision: Stephen Warshaw v HMRC24 April 2019
- UT Decision: Rupert Grint v HMRC29 January 2019
- UT Decision: Jamie White v HMRC7 August 2018
- FTT Decision: Thomson & Ors v HMRC16 July 2018
- Court of Appeal hands down Judgment on (1) Barclays Wealth Trustees (Jersey) Limited (2) Michael Dreelan v HMRC17 October 2017
- UT Decision: Kevan Denley v HMRC29 August 2017
- Chancery Division hands down Judgment on Barclays Wealth Trustees (Jersey) Limited & Michael Dreenlan v HMRC15 October 2015
- UT Decision: Portland Gas & Storage v HMRC17 June 2014
- FTT Decison: Kumon Educational v HMRC20 January 2014
- UT Decision: HMRC v TomTom International BV11 October 2013
- UT Decision: HMRC v Knowledgepoint 360 Group Ltd4 April 2013
- Knowledgepoint 360 Group Ltd v The Commissioners for Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs29 June 2011
- Guarantee Protection Insurance Ltd v The Commissioners for Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs19 May 2011
- FTT Decision: Wakefield College v HMRC20 January 2011
Related resources
- Women and the Tax Bar2 November 2023
- Monday 30th October 2023. Women and the Tax Bar event.11 October 2023
- Emma Chamberlain and Sadiya Choudhury will be giving a talk at the ATT/CIOT Leeds Branch and STEP Yorkshire Private Client Tax Conference21 September 2023
- Pupillage Webinar: Why would I want to do a tax pupillage?16 September 2022
- Multiple Government Legal Department Panel Promotions11 August 2021