In Anglian Water Services v HMRC [2017] UKFTT 386 (4 May 2017) the FTT found that HMRC had established the defence of unjust enrichment in circumstances where the taxpayer had passed the VAT on to its customers and the evidence was that the prices it had charged had not been reduced as a result of the VAT charge.
Anglian Water appealed against HMRC’s refusal to repay its voluntary disclosure of overpaid output tax of over £12m charged on ‘infrastructure charges’ imposed under the Water Act 1989 s 79(2) which were treated as standard rated by Anglian Water. It was accepted that the charges should not have been subject to VAT and that its Fleming claim for repayment was made in time. The issue was whether HMRC was entitled to refuse to repay the overpaid VAT on the basis of the unjust enrichment defence contained in VATA 1994...
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