HMRC v Brunel Motor Co Ltd

In HMRC v Brunel Motor Co Ltd (Upper Tribunal – 21 March) a company (Q) which was a member of a VAT group sold cars which were manufactured by an unrelated company (F). In 2002 Q went into receivership. It held a number of cars for which it had not paid F. In accordance with provisions in the relevant ‘supply agreement’ F reclaimed the cars and issued credit notes. Q’s receivers subsequently submitted a claim for repayment of input tax in respect of these cars. Customs rejected the claim and the representative member of Q’s VAT group appealed contending that the credit notes should not have been treated as effective for VAT purposes and that F should have claimed bad debt relief instead. The VAT Tribunal rejected this contention and dismissed the appeal but the CA remitted the case to the First-tier...