Brit reseller Aria PC's appeal against HMRC VAT fraud finding gets under way

Re: The future...

I think he is laying grounds for an appeal

“You can't just rely on the demeanour of the witness... that’s a conclusion, not a reason.”

"It is common for judges to say they are not impressed by the witness’s evidence.”

Seems to me that they're both right. Judges often say that they are unimpressed by a witness, but that's usually because the witness contradicts themselves, lies, has an incredible story or appears to be making it up as they go along.

Judges dismissing evidence because the witness slumped, looked a bit shifty, eyes were too close together etc. seems wrong.

I bought a monitor off them in 2006...

...I still have the e-mail :)

19" Hyundai Imagequest Q995 Silver

I thought I regonised the company name.

Aria is my goto hardware store, great customer service (brilliant returns policy now too), hope they win - don't care if they're guilty, they probably still pay more tax than Google and Apple et al...

Interesting points to consider - #47:

a) Mr Justice Roth said: “If you think of a witness who is not giving truthful evidence, you can, on that basis, say you don’t find them convincing....

b) HMRC refused to do this, saying that it had a duty of confidentiality to “the taxpayer” (ie, its opponent, Aria) and told us we would have to make a formal legal application to see it, saying that ATL had refused permission for it to be handed over. When our barrister, Greg Callus of 5RB, turned up, Aria Taheri readily agreed to show us copies of both his own brief’s skeleton and HMRC’s....