In Open Safety Equipment v HMRC [2017] UKFTT 261 (28 March 2017) the FTT held that OSE had not failed to charge output tax on certain exports from the UK.
OSE’s principal place of business was in Russia but it also operated from facilities in the UK and China. It designed manufactured and sold diving equipment and in particular rebreather units – breathing backpacks which allow deep sea divers to dive to deeper depths without the need for more oxygen. The larger rebreather units were made outside the EU mainly in Russia. The issue was whether OSE had made exports from the UK on which it had failed to pay output tax.
The FTT accepted the difficulties of OSE in proving a negative – that the largerrebreather units were not in the UK; but also took into account the lack of actual evidence...
