VAT: Hidden depths of University rowing
Rickie Lowery explains how a complex relationship between the boathouse owner, Cambridge University rowing clubs, and the rowers led to a VAT muddle the FTT had to untangle.
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Whilst we don't know the full facts of the background scenario, the facts as reported show HMRC in one of its characteristically determined moods ... determined to be seen as a sore loser that is.
The first hint is whenever HMRC trot out that hoary chestnut - an assertion that .. by allowing (the) appeal, the FTT would “open the floodgates”! What that emotive statement has to do with the facts of the case being pleaded eludes me.
But the coup de grâce is when HMRC, having lost the case, say that there are still “further issues” to be considered before it would permit the recovery of VAT for the relevant periods. So if at first you don't succeed, simply change your line of attack ... and keep up this form of attrition for as long as necessary.
I thought this one sounded a tad desperate
"HMRC then argued that the successful rowers were paying for the use of the boathouse by giving up their image rights and providing free labour to the club"
Quite ... that scraping sound is HMRC dredging the bottom of the river (having completed their efforts to do the same to a nearby barrel)!