Upper Tribunal Tax and Chancery Chamber

UT/2023/000115 - [2025] UKUT 00004 (TCC)

Fecha: 09-Oct-2024

HMRC’s arguments

HMRC’s arguments

34.

For HMRC, Ms Mannion said that the nub of the issue is whether Item 1(b) requires an event which has a single primary purpose of fundraising, or whether it can be satisfied, as the FTT decided, by an event for which one of the important purposes is fundraising. In HMRC’s submission, the FTT was wrong in law, because Item 1(b) plainly requires a single identifiable primary purpose.

35.

Ms Mannion made the following points:

(1)

The language of Item 1(b), particularly given the established need for VAT exemptions to be construed strictly, supports HMRC’s position.

(2)

Blaydon supports HMRC’s interpretation. While Newsvendors and Cheltenham and Gloucester College of Higher EducationStudents’ Union v Commissioners of Customs and Excise [1998] (1998) VAT Decision 16727 (“Cheltenham”) arguably support the FTT’s interpretation, those decisions relate to the pre-2000 provision, which is differently worded.

(3)

Properly read, Loughborough FTT in fact supports HMRC’s interpretation.

(4)

As regards the FTT’s conclusion that the main purposes of fundraising and education were “entwined”, that conclusion was founded on and undermined by the FTT’s flawed legal analysis.

(5)

As a matter of law, Item 1(b) requires a determination of any separate purposes for the event, followed by a determination of the single primary purpose. There cannot be an “intertwined” primary purpose.

(6)

Applying Item 1(b) correctly, the FTT’s findings of fact, and the Society’s own case, meant that the requirement was failed.