The UK Supreme Court is to hand down its judgment in respect of News Corp UK & Ireland Ltd (Appellant) v Commissioners for His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (Respondent) on Wednesday 22 February 2023 (recordings of the earlier hearings can viewed by clicking on the link in this paragraph).
The Supreme Court building is open to members of the public, parties, visitors, and the media. Judgments are handed down in person, in the Court, on Wednesdays at 9.45am. They are also live streamed via the UKSC website, so can be watched live or on demand.
Issue
Whether the Court of Appeal erred in finding that News Corp’s supplies of digital issues of The Times, The Sunday Times, The Sun and The Sun on Sunday were not supplies of “newspapers” within the meaning of the Value Added Tax Act 1994 (the “VAT Act”) such that they could not be zero-rated for Value Added Tax (“VAT”) during the period 30 August 2010 – 4 December 2016.
Facts
News Corp is the publisher of The Times, The Sunday Times, The Sun and The Sun on Sunday. News Corp argues that the digital editions of these publications were subject to zero-rate VAT for the period 30 August 2010 – 4 December 2016, as they are “newspapers” for the purposes of the VAT Act. HMRC found that News Corp was not entitled to zero-rate the supply of these digital editions. News Corp appealed these decisions. The First-tier Tribunal found that digital editions are not “newspapers” for the purposes of the VAT Act, and so rejected News Corp’s claim for recovery of over £35 million. The Upper Tribunal allowed News Corp’s subsequent appeal. HMRC appealed to the Court of Appeal, which allowed its appeal. News Corp now appeals to the Supreme Court.
Judgment appealed
https://www.supremecourt.uk/news/future-judgments.html
Related content from Claritax Books
Value Added Tax, written by Ciaran McGee MA (Oxon), FCA, CTA, is an extensive volume (over 1,000 pages), written primarily for non-VAT specialist accountants and tax advisers.
