Metropolitan International Schools v HMRC

In Metropolitan International Schools v HMRC [2019] EWCA Civ 156 (14 February 2019) the Court of Appeal found that VATA 1994 s 84 could not give the tax tribunals jurisdiction to hear public law arguments.

The school provided distance learning courses. In a letter of 2000 HMRC had accepted that course fees should be apportioned on the basis that the school was making both standard-rated supplies of educational services and zero-rated supplies of books. The letter also warned that the method ‘could be reviewed at any time’. In 2009 following the decision of the House of Lords in College of Estate Management [2005] UKHL 62 HMRC informed the school that it had discovered that all the school’s supplies were in fact taxable. HMRC decided that with effect from September 2009 the school should account for VAT...