Master & Fellows of St Mary Magdalene College in the University of Cambridge v HMRC

In Master & Fellows of St Mary Magdalene College in the University of Cambridge v HMRC (TC01522 – 21 November) a Cambridge college had reclaimed input tax in accordance with the ‘CVCP Guidelines’. In 2003 it submitted a further repayment claim backdated to 1973 relating to capital expenditure. HMRC rejected the claim on the grounds that the CVCP method had already granted relief for the tax. The tribunal dismissed the college’s appeal. Sir Stephen Oliver observed that ‘save in certain specific areas (such as the capital goods scheme) the VAT code makes no distinction in either the output tax or the input tax provisions between capital and revenue expenditure’. Accordingly the agreed CVCP method covered capital expenditure as well as revenue expenditure. (The college also appealed against an assessment which HMRC had issued in 2007 to recover input tax which the...