Indirect tax news from the past week
08/09/2025
Date of Autumn Budget confirmed
On 3 September 2025, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves MP, announced that the Autumn Budget will take place on Wednesday 26 November 2025. The Budget will be presented alongside the latest economic and fiscal forecasts commissioned from the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR). HM Treasury is inviting Budget representations from interested stakeholders until 15 October 2025.
HMRC publish Guidelines for Compliance on checking documents filed with HMRC are correct and complete
On 1 September 2025, HMRC published the latest in their Guidelines for Compliance (GfC) series. GfCs are intended to help taxpayers and their advisers understand HMRC’s view on particular issues and include best practice examples. New GfC13, Help ensuring documents filed with HMRC are correct and complete, sets out HMRC’s view on the meaning of ‘correct and complete’. HMRC state that their policy has not changed and that they expect most taxpayers with simple tax affairs will be unaffected. GfC13 applies to all HMRC submissions that include a declaration that they are correct and complete, including, but not limited to, self- assessment returns for income tax, corporation tax, and VAT. (Contact: Andrew Clarke)
Arcomet Towercranes SRL: VAT and transfer pricing adjustments – CJEU judgment
SC Arcomet Towercranes SRL (Arcomet Romania) acquired cranes for sale or lease to customers in Romania. Arcomet Romania’s parent company, Arcomet Service NV Belgium (Arcomet Belgium), provided commercial support to Arcomet Romania. A 2010 transfer pricing study set an operating margin for Arcomet Romania of between -0.71% and 2.74%, in accordance with the Transactional Net Margin Method. From 2011 to 2013, Arcomet Romania’s profits exceeded this amount, and Arcomet Belgium accordingly issued invoices to Arcomet Romania. Arcomet Romania applied the reverse charge to the first two invoices, but for the third invoice, considered that the transaction was outside the scope of VAT. The Romanian tax authorities (RTA) took the view that all three invoices related to intra-EU purchases of services and so should have been subject to the reverse charge, and that Arcomet Romania had failed to produce sufficient evidence of the nature or necessity of the services to justify deduction of the reverse-charged VAT. The CJEU has held that, for VAT purposes, Arcomet Belgium’s activities constituted taxable supplies; there was a legal relationship with reciprocal performance, and a direct link between the services supplied and the amounts paid. The fact that the amounts were calculated by way of a transfer pricing methodology, and could vary, did not affect this analysis. The CJEU rejected the RTA’s arguments that Arcomet Romania had to demonstrate that the services were necessary or appropriate, but agreed that the RTA could require evidence, additional to the invoices, to support the substantive conditions for VAT deductibility, namely that the services were supplied to and were used by Arcomet Romania for the purposes of its taxable activities. (Contact: Nicole Faith)
VAT case calendar
On 11 September, the Supreme Court will deliver its judgment in The Prudential Assurance Company Limited on the interaction between the VAT grouping rules and the time of supply for continuous supplies of services.
At the CJEU, on 11 September, there will be Advocate General opinions in Lyko Operations on VAT and customer loyalty schemes and Žaidimų valiuta on the VAT treatment of in-game sales.
Dbriefs webcast
On Tuesday 9 September at 12.00, the UK Tax Update – September webcast will cover the latest UK tax developments, with updates on news in corporate, international, employment and indirect taxes.