Richard Curtis

RICHARD CURTIS reviews some recent decisions.

Customs shot down

The appellants operated a shooting school and had charged VAT at the standard rate on their fees. However, they had subsequently agreed with Customs that their services, to the extent that they applied to the tuition of individuals, should be exempt from VAT under Item 2 of Group 6 of Schedule 9 to the VAT Act 1994 as 'the supply of private tuition, in a subject ordinarily taught in a school or university, by an individual teacher acting independently of an employer'.

RICHARD CURTIS probes the workings of section 105A, Taxation of Chargeable Gains Act 1992.

A lump sum was not paid on retirement in Venables and Others v Hornby (Inspector of Taxes).

WHERE AN EMPLOYEE'S services had not clearly ceased, he was held not to have 'retired' for the purposes of receiving a tax free lump sum from the firm's pension scheme under section 596, Taxes Act 1988.

RICHARD CURTIS reviews some recent decisions.

Tasty and easy

RICHARD CURTIS examines a recent Treasury Committee report.

Two cases on VAT avoidance schemes: Blackqueen Limited (17680); and The University of Huddersfield Higher Education Corporation (17854).
Dodgy motor scheme?
A case of some notoriety at the VAT Tribunal, made available last summer, concerned a convoluted tax avoidance scheme entered into by a group of companies within the motor trade. The purpose of this scheme was to enable the group to obtain full input tax credit for VAT purposes on purchases of vehicles, but to account for output tax only on the profit margin.

RICHARD CURTIS reports Barclays Mercantile Business Finance Ltd v Mawson (Inspector of Taxes).

The Ramsay doctrine, when applied to a series of transactions that were ostensibly a finance lease, dictated that this was an example of 'financial engineering', rather than expenditure incurred in a trade. The expenditure was not therefore eligible for capital allowances.