TC09497 - [2025] UKFTT 00460 (TC)

Mr Khokhar repeatedly sought to argue that GM had a legitimate expectation that its supplies would be treated as exempt. This argument was put forward with various formulations, but the common thread was that an enquiry had been made via HMRC’s online portal on behalf of GM in 2014 or 2015 asking for confirmation that “supplies of examination/assessment services are exempt from VAT under item 3(a) of Group 6 of Schedule 9 of the VAT Act 1994”. We took the view that we did not have jurisdiction to hear this argument on the basis of the authority of the Upper Tribunal in The Commissioners for Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs v Abdul Noor [2013] UKUT 071 (TCC) where it was held that the First-tier Tribunal does not have jurisdiction to give effect to legitimate expectation claims that go beyond an entitlement ascertained in accordance with the relevant VAT legislation; any such legitimate expectation is a matter for remedy by judicial review. In any event, the enquiry made on behalf of GM and the reply from HMRC did not appear to us to even begin to meet the requirements for actionable legitimate expectation set out in R v Inland Revenue Commissioners, ex parte MFK Underwriting Agencies Ltd [1990] 1 WLR 1545. The enquiry asked for confirmation that examination services were exempt (which they self-evidently are), rather than explaining the nature of GM’s supplies and asking whether those were correctly to be characterised as examination services. Using the analogy of MFK, GM’s cards were not even put on the table, let alone face up.