Onus on taxpayer to check option to tax election

The taxpayer bought a building referred to as Jubilee Centre in 2008 and submitted form VAT1614A to HMRC to notify an option to tax election from 10 January 2008. It claimed large amounts of input tax on repairing and improving the building subsequently charging VAT on the rent to tenants. It sold the building in March 2015 and no VAT was charged despite the option to tax election being in place. In August 2017 HMRC issued an assessment against which the taxpayer appealed.

The taxpayer’s representative argued that the assessment was incorrect because the taxpayer had made previous exempt supplies of the building before its option to tax election was made in 2008. The taxpayer should therefore have asked for HMRC’s permission to opt to tax but had failed to do so. As a result the option to tax notification was invalid and the sale of...