TC09677 - [2025] UKFTT 01282 (TC)

This is the application of the Respondents (‘HMRC’) dated 28 April 2025 for an amendment to the decision issued by the First-tier Tribunal (‘FTT’) on 4 March 2024 that these proceedings are stayed pending the outcome of HMRC’s application for permission to appeal the decision of the Upper Tribunal (‘UT’) in Bolt Services UK Limited v HMRC [2025] UKUT 100 (TCC) (‘the Bolt Appeal’), and, if permission to appeal is granted, pending the final determination of any such appeal. HMRC have since been granted permission to appeal the UT’s decision in the Bolt Appeal to the Court of Appeal.

The documents to which I was referred were contained within the 735-page document bundle, 824-page authorities bundle and skeleton arguments from both parties.

On 30 May 2025, I granted an unopposed application made by the Appellant (‘Uber’) for a witness statement and certain documents to be redacted in the event that disclosure was sought by third parties, and on 4 July 2025 the FTT issued a direction that this hearing take place in private. The hearing lasted 1 day. During the hearing, I granted a further confidentiality application made by Uber, which was not opposed by HMRC, having considered the application to be appropriate and limited in terms of the redactions sought being in respect of particularly sensitive information.

The central issue in the appeal concerns whether Uber’s private hire transport services fall within the scope of the Tour Operators Margin Scheme (‘TOMS’). Uber relies upon the UT decision in the Bolt Appeal, where it was held that TOMS applies to analogous services, and submits that the reasoning and outcome are binding upon this Tribunal and dispositive of the present appeal.

This application concerns the terms upon which an extension of the current stay of proceedings should be granted pending the final outcome of the Bolt Appeal. Uber seeks to make such a stay conditional on HMRC restoring to Uber ‘the Deposited Sums’, i.e. the sums deposited with HMRC pursuant to section 84(3) Value Added Tax Act 1994 (‘VAT Act 1994’). HMRC resist that proposed condition.

Having carefully considered the submissions made and evidence adduced by both parties, I grant HMRC’s application for an unconditional stay. The reasons for that decision are set out below.