HMRC v S & I Electronics plc (and cross-appeal)

In HMRC v S & I Electronics plc (and cross-appeal) (Upper Tribunal – 21 March) a company (S) reclaimed input tax in respect of a large number of transactions in mobile telephones. HMRC rejected the claims with regard to 90 transactions on the grounds that it appeared that they were connected to MTIC fraud. The First-tier Tribunal found that S should have known that the transactions were likely to be connected to fraud but held that input tax should only be denied to the extent of the tax loss. Both sides appealed to the Upper Tribunal which upheld HMRC’s view that ‘a trader who falls to be treated as a participant in tax fraud loses the right to any input tax credit whatever the extent of the tax loss’. However the Upper Tribunal also held that the First-tier Tribunal had erred in indicating that...