In Gala 1 v HMRC [2016] UKUT 564 (3 January 2017) the UT confirmed that the right to a repayment under VATA 1994 s 80 in the context of a VAT group rests firmly with the representative member.
Gala appealed against HMRC’s rejection of its claims for repayment under VATA 1994 s 80. The claims related to supplies made by Gala (and other companies which had assigned their rights to Gala) whilst a member of various groups consecutively. On the basis of Taylor Clark [2016] CSIH 54 and MG Rover [2016] UKUT 434 Gala accepted that in the context of a group the right to claim repayment of overpaid VAT was the right of a single taxable person and that those rights were vested in the group’s representative member and not in the ‘real world supplier’ (RWS) save in exceptional cases. It...
