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Any assessments made must satisfy the best judgement criteria. This means that given a set of conditions or circumstances, you must take any necessary action and produce a result that is deemed to be reasonable and not arbitrary.

In other words best judgement is not the equivalent of the best result or the most favourable conclusion. It is a reasonable process by which an assessment is successfully reached.

The meaning of the phrase ‘to the best of their judgement� and principles inherent in the Commissioners requirement to exercise best judgement were considered in a High Court ruling given by Woolf J, as he was then, in the appeal case Van Boeckel v C & E QB Dec 1980, [1981] STC 290.

The case set the benchmark for best judgement. In summary, the principles adopted in Van Boeckel are that

• the Commissioners should not be required to do the work of the taxpayer
• the Commissioners must perform their function honestly and above-board
• the Commissioners should fairly consider all the material before them and on that material, come to a decision which is reasonable and not arbitrary, and
• there must be some material before the Commissioners on which they can base their judgement.

The basic principles have been refined in a number of other cases. In the case of CA McCourtie LON/92/191 the tribunal considered the principles set out in Van Boeckel and put forward three further propositions

• the facts should be objectively gathered and intelligently interpreted
• the calculations should be arithmetically sound, and
• any sampling technique should be representative.