Eynsham Cricket Club v HMRC

In Eynsham Cricket Club v HMRC [2019] UKUT 286 (1 October 2019) the UT found that a local sports club was not a charity so that supplies of construction services it received were not zero-rated.

Eynsham Cricket Club (ECC) was a local village cricket club in Oxfordshire registered as a Community Amateur Sports Club (CASC) (CTA 2010). In February 2012 ECC’s pavilion was destroyed by fire and ECC engaged a contractor to build a new pavilion. The issue was whether ECC should benefit from zero-rating on the construction services (VATA 1994 Sch 8 Group 5). This depended on whether the pavilion was to be used for a ‘relevant charitable purpose’.

Following the UT’s decision it was accepted that ECC was established for charitable purposes for the purpose of FA 2010 Sch 6 but the parties disagreed on the effect of the Charities Act (CA) 2011 s 6...