Spring 2008 Newsletter Content Winter Of Discontent CGT Winners CGT Losers Shifty Business Anything To Declare? Long Arm Of The Law Irreplaceable You Earn As You Pay Ask Questions Later Capital Ideas ISA ISA ISA Referee! Go Green VAT Or No VAT? Taking The Register Close Encounters May Contain Nuts Going Concern Ancient History Business And Pleasure Do Your Duty Know Your Rights Time To Go? Passing The Buck

Ancient History In 1996, Chancellor Kenneth Clarke (seems a long time ago) tried to put a limit on businesses claiming back VAT that they had overpaid or underclaimed. The trouble was that the European Court kept ruling that we were doing things wrong in the UK, and where that was in the taxpayers' favour, people generally had six years from the ruling - six years from when they could have known about the mistake - to make a claim going all the way back to the start of VAT in 1973. So Ken Clarke brought in a three year limit to give Customs protection. In 2002, Marks & Spencer won a case at the European Court which showed that the rule was brought in unlawfully - it came in with immediate effect, but people ought to have been given a last chance to claim the rights they already had. Customs announced a "second last chance" to claim overpaid output tax. Now the House of Lords has ruled that the last chance has never yet been given to people who hadn't claimed input tax that was due to them. HMRC are still digesting the effect of that, but it appears that anyone who is due input tax from before May 1997 - and who can still prove it, which is likely to be the biggest hurdle - can claim it all the way back to 1973. You may wonder why didn't they claim it at the time - they may have been told by Customs that they couldn't, and a later European Court decision has shown that they should have been allowed to. After such a long time it's not likely that many people will be able to make a claim, but if you have a long memory, a good archive and a grievance against an old Customs ruling, let us know!