In Reed Employment v HMRC (A3/2013/1413 – 23 January 2014) the Court of Appeal had to decide whether FA 2005 s 3 – which had given HMRC the unjust enrichment defence against claims for repayment of VAT – infringed the EU principles of equal treatment and fiscal neutrality.
The appeal was on the basis that claims relating to the same period were treated differently depending on whether they had been filed before or after FA 2005 s 3 came into force (the ‘cut-off date’).
Lady Justice Arden noted that the principle of equal treatment requires that comparable situations be treated in the same way unless the difference is objectively justified whilst the principle of fiscal neutrality precludes unequal treatment of similar claims where the difference in treatment leads to distortions in competition.
She considered that Weber’s Wine World (C-147/01) is authority for the proposition that a member state can...
