Capital Air Services and Tax Tribunal costs

Under the new system the First-tier Tribunal can in normal cases only award successful litigants the recovery of their reasonable costs if the case enters the complex category. The Upper Tribunal’s guidance in Capital Air Services v HMRC indicates that even there successful taxpayers should not expect to recover their costs automatically. Such an approach may not be compatible with EU law principles. In that event we could be back to the previous anomaly which the new tribunal system had sought to cure. Successful VAT claimants may well be entitled to recover their costs where in identical circumstances those with direct tax claims won’t.