No input tax recovery for VAT not charged

Zipvit sold vitamins and minerals by mail order and used Royal Mail to deliver them. Royal Mail did not charge VAT on the services because it believed these were exempt. As a result of the Court of Justice of the EU in R (on the application of TNT Post UK Ltd) v CRC (Case C-357/07) [2009] STC 1438 determining that Royal Mail’s services should have been standard rated Zipvit claimed input VAT on its supplies. HMRC rejected the claims.

The matter progressed through the UK courts before the Supreme Court referred the matter to the Court of Justice of the EU. It decided that For the purposes of Article 168(a) of the Principal VAT Directive VAT could not be regarded as being due or paid when:

• the customer and supplier have mistakenly assumed the supplies were exempt from VAT due to an incorrect interpretation of EU law...