Brexit VAT challenges

There is no doubt that Brexit was a big step into the unknown on many fronts. A unique event.

In the VAT world many advisers – me included – breathed a huge sigh of relief when we got to about June 2021 and many of the initial teething problems caused by the final 31 December 2020 departure date – known as IP completion day – had been resolved. The goods were flowing again. Everything is now sorted isn’t it?

However an issue that has always unsettled me since then relates to the impact of EU VAT law on UK VAT law now that we have left. Is it completely irrelevant? Should we only focus on UK legislation? What about the decades of ECJ (European Court of Justice) and CJEU (Court of Justice of the European Union) case law that has guided and sometimes overruled our...