Indirect tax news from the past week
02/09/2024
Go City Ltd: VAT treatment of city passes – FTT
Go City Ltd (formerly the Leisure Pass Group Ltd) sold the London Pass and the London Explorer Pass (the Passes), which entitled the purchaser to enter various attractions and use certain transport in London without further payment. The FTT has held that the Passes were multi-purpose vouchers and were therefore outside the scope of VAT, and were not tickets, as argued by HMRC. The Passes were also outside the scope of VAT because of the contractual arrangements whereby Go City acted as the supplier of entry to the attractions, meaning that the supplies took place when customers used the Passes and not when the Passes were purchased. The FTT also rejected HMRC’s contention that the entire purchase price should be allocated as consideration for Go City’s supplies: where a customer did not use all the credits, the unallocated part of the payment was not consideration for a supply. The FTT considered the validity of the first two of four assessments which were raised “to protect HMRC’s position” in respect of the purported under-declaration of VAT. The FTT found that the assessments were invalid because at the time they were raised HMRC did not have a view that Go City’s VAT returns were incorrect, as a final decision had yet to be made. The FTT allowed Go City’s appeal. (Contact Katy Sweaton)
CJEU: transfer of jurisdiction to give preliminary rulings from Court of Justice to General Court
On 12 August 2024, the Court of Justice of the European Union issued a press release confirming that, with the publication of the relevant regulation, the jurisdiction to hear and determine questions referred for a preliminary ruling will be transferred from the Court of Justice to the General Court in specified areas, including indirect tax matters, for any referral received from 1 October 2024. By way of background, the Court of Justice of the European Union is divided into two courts: the Court of Justice, which inter alia currently deals with requests for preliminary rulings from national courts, and the General Court, which in practice deals mainly with competition law, State aid, trade, agriculture, and trade marks. Citing the need to reduce the workload of the Court of Justice, in March 2024 the Council of the European Union announced its approval to transfer to the General Court jurisdiction to give preliminary rulings in certain specified areas. These are: VAT, excise duties, the Customs Code, tariff classification, passenger compensation for delayed or cancelled transport services, and greenhouse gas emission allowance trading. The Court of Justice will retain jurisdiction to adjudicate over such requests if they raise independent questions of interpretation of primary law, public international law, or general principles of Union law. (Contact: Nicole Faith)
Deloitte VAT School 2024
A reminder that Deloitte VAT School starts on 10 September 2024. Deloitte VAT School is a comprehensive VAT training programme providing participants with practical VAT knowledge and helping them become more effective in their role. There are four modules held monthly from September through to December. The price is £3,150, plus VAT, for sessions 1 to 4, with a 15% discount for bookings of three or more places from the same organisation. For more information and to register, visit the Deloitte VAT School 2024 webpage. (Contact: Andrew Clarke)
This week’s CJEU VAT calendar
On 5 September, the CJEU will deliver judgments in the joined cases from the Netherlands on the VAT treatment of pension fund management fees: X, Fiscale Eenheid Achmea, Y, Pensioenfonds voor Fysiotherapeuten, BPL Pensioen, and BPFL. For further information about the cases, and a report on the hearing, see tax@hand. There will also be a judgment in H GmbH regarding a Reemtsma claim. Also on 5 September, there will be an Advocate General’s opinion in Dranken Van Eetvelde, concerning penalties for VAT fraud.