TC09603 - [2025] UKFTT 00931 (TC)

In relation to the first of those issues, the starting point was to identify the document or documents which set out the Respondents’ decision. Mr Way said that those were the letter of 15 December 2022 and the two letters of 13 October 2023 in which Officer Ross had denied the Appellant’s claim to recover the VAT input tax (the “denial letters”). It was not the letter of 13 September 2023 in which Officer McInnes had set out the result of the review (the “review conclusion letter”). However, he considered that very little turned on that distinction because the basis for the Respondents’ refusal was the same in the case of the denial letters as it was in the case of the review conclusion letter.

Mr Brown said that he did not agree that the review conclusion letter was not relevant in identifying the Respondents’ decision. That was because each notice of appeal which had been sent to the FTT expressly referred to, and attached, the review conclusion letter. Having said that, he agreed that very little turned on that distinction because the basis for the Respondents’ refusal was the same in the case of the denial letters as it was in the case of the review conclusion letter.

I am inclined to agree with Mr Way that it is the terms of the denial letters and not the terms of the review conclusion letter which are relevant in determining what it was that the Respondents decided in this case. I say that because, when one looks at Section 83 of the VATA in context, and particularly in the light of Section 83G of the VATA to which reference is made at the start of that section, it would seem that the appeals listed in that section are appeals against the relevant original decision which was made by the Respondents and not appeals against the review conclusion letter. The conduct of a review subsequent to the making of the relevant decision affects the period in which the appeal may be made but it does not change the fact that the appeal is against the original decision and not against the letter setting out the conclusion of the review. Having said that, I agree with both parties that this does not make a great difference in the present case because the substance of the review conclusion letter is not meaningfully different from the substance of the denial letters.