Statutory requirements for output tax repayment claims

The taxpayer traded as a car rental company. In March 2009 its adviser wrote a letter enclosing a copy of the company’s accounts for the year ended 31 December 1989 claiming a repayment of output tax. HMRC said the letter did not constitute a claim because it did not specify a VAT accounting period so did not satisfy the statutory requirements in the VAT Regulations SI 1995/2518 reg 37.

The First-tier Tribunal allowed the taxpayer’s appeal but the Upper Tribunal overturned that decision.

Lord Justice Floyd in the Court of Appeal said: ‘The notion that VAT is accounted for and paid by reference to prescribed accounting periods pervades the VAT legislation.’ Further such periods could be of three months or in some circumstances one month all ‘ending on dates notified to the taxpayer’ (reg 25(1)).

The judge accepted that reg 37 did not...