Upper Tribunal Tax and Chancery Chamber

UT/2024/000002 - [2025] UKUT 00188 (TCC)

Fecha: 14-Mar-2025

Grounds of appeal

Grounds of appeal

59.

CBNA’s grounds of appeal are that the FTT made various errors in concluding CBNA made a single composite supply. In particular it is argued the FTT:

(1)

Misconstrued key aspects of the contracts in issue before it.

(2)

Ignored other aspects of those contracts that were material.

(3)

In concluding that because the contracts reflected economic reality, it was not necessary to ‘go behind’ them, failed to (i) recognise the limitations of those contracts and (ii) consider other evidence before it (recorded in its findings of fact) which was inconsistent with its conclusion.

(4)

Misapplied the key factors of indivisibility and indispensability, equating those factors with the existence of ‘close links’ and ‘necessity’.

(5)

Misapplied the concept of separate availability.

(6)

Placed undue (and in any event incorrect) reliance on invoicing.

60.

We deal with each of these points in turn. It can be seen that Grounds 1-3 encompass a challenge that the FTT’s analysis of the contractual starting point was wrong and the need for the FTT to have examined the wider circumstances whereas Grounds 4-6 concern misapplications of the tests mentioned as respectively decisive and supportive in Frenetikexito.

61.

HMRC dispute that the FTT made any of these errors. They emphasise that the contract stipulated for there to be a separate and distinct service, and that under that there needed to be a separate invoice. However there was no evidence of such separate invoice. Therefore the FTT was right to find no separate supplies of business delivery services but a single support function service and there was no error in its analysis.