The House of Lords will release it's decision in the Conde Nast Publications test case today, one of the most significant VAT cases for many years.
If the House of Lords finds in favour of the publisher, which was advised by Deloitte, UK companies could be able to recoup at least £1bn in overpaid VAT.
The case concerns Conde Nast's claim for underclaimed VAT on staff expenses going back to 1973.
HMRC refused most of the claim on the basis the claim was outside the 3 year limitation period for making claims for overpaid taxes, which Parliament introduced into law with effect from 1 May 1997.
Conde Nast contested the case through the entire UK court system that the UK legislation, which capped its claim, was defective and in breach of EU law principles of effectiveness and legal certainty, as the new UK law did not contain any transitional arrangements to allow taxpayers to bring claims which the previous law would have allowed them to make.
This case potentially affects all businesses that might have valid claims for under recovered VAT under the old law but were unable to claim back the overpaid VAT because of the three year cap.
Further reading:
Comments