Rank Group

Rank Group

May 27, 2020 | First Tier, Upper Tribunal and Court of Appeal Cases | 0 comments

The Rank Group had attempted to recover excessive output tax declared and paid to HMRC in relation to Bingo sales, which had been incorrectly standard rated since the inception of VAT, forty-seven years ago. Most of the claims had been accepted and repaid by HMRC except for one claim that was outside the four year time limit. The Court of Appeal supported HMRC’s position despite legal argument by the Rank Group that the four year time limit for making such claims could be breached by using the Birmingham Hippodrome [2014] BVC 27 decision in which HMRC disregarded the four year cap. Rank argued that HMRC could assess it for input tax overclaimed in the period covered by the rejected claim, and therefore its overpaid output tax should be set off and its claim for the period (£67.05m) repaid. By finding for HMRC the Court of Appeal confirmed that rejecting the claim was legal.
Union Castle Mail Steamship Company

Union Castle Mail Steamship Company

May 27, 2020 | First Tier, Upper Tribunal and Court of Appeal Cases | 0 comments

The Court of Appeal ruled on closure notices that had disallowed deductions in corporation tax. The deductions related to administrative matters in relation to derivatives contracts. The Court of Appeal agreed with the lower courts that these type of costs were not the same as losses affecting the value of the contracts and that therefore it was not correct to regard the costs as diminishing the overall value of the derivatives contracts and therefore no deductions were appropriate in relation to corporation tax.

Royal Opera House

Royal Opera House

May 27, 2020 | First Tier, Upper Tribunal and Court of Appeal Cases, Tax Advice | 0 comments

The Royal Opera House is a partially exempt trader who tried to make its overall input tax recovery including the costs of putting on productions attributable to the taxable supplies it makes. These are essentially catering and hospitality supplies made before and during productions. The Upper Tier Tribunal refused the link as they regarded the supply of the exempt production as the primary purpose of the opera House. Therefore, the production costs remained non-recoverable under partial exemption regulations.

 

For anybody operating a partial exemption method, expenditure must be correctly identified for the purposes of recovery of tax.

Malde v HMRC

Apr 20, 2020 | First Tier, Upper Tribunal and Court of Appeal Cases | 0 comments

In the case of Malde v HMRC the First-tier Tribunal dismissed the Appellant’s appeal against HMRCs refusal to allow input tax to be reclaimed in relation to legal fees incurred by a sole trader where the input tax the individual had incurred in dealing with a freezing order related to the issue of personal liability notices. The input tax was for legal fees and HMRC said that the VAT that had been reclaimed had nothing to do with the supplies the sole trader usually made in the course of his business. This is a lesson for all those that trade in their own name that the input tax you recover on your VAT returns must relate to the supplies that you make and upon which you declare output tax.

Link to British and Irish Legal Information Institute

HMRC Application For Permission To Appeal To The Upper Tribunal

Apr 20, 2020 | First Tier, Upper Tribunal and Court of Appeal Cases | 0 comments

This case was an HMRC application for permission to appeal to the Upper Tribunal in a case where they had initially lost in the First-tier Tribunal on the matter of whether Discovery Assessments issued under TMA 1970 S.29 when they had argued that the concept of “staleness” could not render an assessment invalid. Having lost in the initial hearing HMRC were refused permission to appeal.

Link to British and Irish Legal Information Institute

Judicial Review To Quash Partnership Follower Notices and Loan Charge Notices

Apr 20, 2020 | First Tier, Upper Tribunal and Court of Appeal Cases, Uncategorized | 0 comments

In the case of R (on the application of Cartref Care Home) [2019] an application was made for  a Judicial Review to quash Partnership Follower Notices and Loan Charge Notices on the basis they were not compatible with the Human Rights Act 1998. The application was dismissed, but as HMRC seek to deal with the loan charge issue, it is likely that this type of court case will occur quite regularly.

Link to British and Irish Legal Information Institute