In The Claimants in the Royal Mail Group Litigation and Royal Mail Group Ltd [2020] EWHC 97 (Ch) (23 January 2020) the High Court decided that Royal Mail was not under a statutory duty to provide VAT invoices enforceable by a customer.
Until 2009 it was generally assumed that postal services provided by Royal Mail were exempt from VAT. However in R (on the application of TNT Post UK Ltd) [2009] STC 1438 the CJEU decided that VAT was chargeable on services that were individually negotiated. The claimants argued they were entitled to VAT invoices from Royal Mail for such services so they could use them to reclaim historic input tax from HMRC. They argued that a statutory duty was required because HMRC’s discretion to consider evidence other than VAT invoices was not an effective alternative remedy. Henderson LJ’s judgment in Zipvit Ltd [2018] EWCA Civ...
