- The Yorkshire Agricultural Society organized the Great Yorkshire Show and there was a dispute over whether admission to the show was exempt from VAT and whether HMRC’s assessment was made within the time limit.
- The UK legislation provides exemptions for fundraising events by charities and other qualifying bodies.
- The FTT concluded that the Show had two main purposes – fundraising and education, and that if fundraising was taken as a discrete purpose or as one of two inter-dependent purposes, then it was the main purpose of the Show.
- The FTT also noted that there was an incompatibility between domestic legislation and EU legislation and that the Marleasing principle still applies in the UK.
- The assessment was made just before the four-year time limit, and the key to the dispute was whether it was made within one year after evidence of facts, sufficient in the opinion of the Commissioners to justify the making of an assessment, comes to their knowledge.
Source KPMG
