Anglian Water Services v HMRC

Cathya Djanogly

In Anglian Water Services v HMRC [2018] UKUT 431 (27 December 2018) the UT found that HMRC had established the defence of unjust enrichment against a claim for repayment of VAT.

Anglian Water was appointed as a water and sewerage undertaker for the Anglian region in 1989 as part of the privatisation of the water industry. It had made a claim for repayment of VAT wrongly charged to customers in relation to certain infrastructure charges. HMRC accepted that the supplies were outside the scope of VAT but it refused the claim relying on the defence of unjust enrichment in VATA 1994 s 80(3).

The UT first observed that the burden was on HMRC to establish the defence of unjust enrichment so the issue was whether the FTT had erred in law in concluding that HMRC had made out the defence. The UT also noted that where...

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