Input tax claimed on rent for premises

The taxpayer traded as a publican. The premises were rented and an issue arose as to whether he could claim input tax on rent charged by the landlord from 2015 to 2017. There were 11 quarterly input tax claims of £1 300 and one for £4 923. The landlord had opted to tax his interest in the property.

HMRC identified three problems with the taxpayer’s input tax claims. These were that the lease for the premises was in his wife’s name or possibly a partnership between the two of them; no VAT invoices were available to support the claim; and there was no evidence that the business had actually made any payments for the rent in question.

The First-tier Tribunal said it was for the taxpayer to prove that input tax could be claimed. He needed to persuade the tribunal on the ‘balance of probabilities’ that HMRC was wrong...