Cases - Winterthur Life UK Ltd v Customs & Excise Commissioners
Record details
- Name
- Winterthur Life UK Ltd v Customs & Excise Commissioners
- Date
- [1998]
- Citation
- VAT decision 15785
- Legislation
- Keywords
- Value added tax - exemption from VAT - option to tax - whether pension scheme payments providing finance leading to disapplication of option to tax
- Summary
-
The tribunal considered whether pension scheme payments could be seen as 'providing finance' and could lead to the disapplication of the option to tax where payments to a pension fund funded the acquisition of a property. The property acquired in this case was leased to the VAT-exempt business that had made the pension scheme contributions.
It was held that although this was an innocent transaction, the anti-avoidance rules must apply. Thus the option to tax was disapplied, preventing the recovery of the VAT incurred.