Lothian NHS Health Board v HMRC

In Lothian NHS Health Board v HMRC [2015] UKUT 0264 (28 May 2015) the UT found that a historic repayment claim must fail due to lack of evidence.

The appeal concerned a Fleming claim by an NHS Board to recover input tax paid on capital expenditure during a 23 year period. The appeal had been refused by the FTT on the ground that the appellant had failed to prove to an acceptable standard what amount if any of unrecovered input VAT had been paid by it on capital expenditure over the period. The issue was whether the FTT had erred in law in refusing the appeal on that ground.

The UT observed that contemporaneous bookkeeping practices had failed to identify whether expenditure was VAT inclusive or exclusive; and that there were no reliable records of input tax recoveries made contemporaneously during the years to which the...