- SilverDoor Ltd acted as an agent for Property Partners, providing short-term rentals
- SilverDoor charged a commission and an additional fee for payments made via corporate credit card
- HMRC raised a VAT assessment on SilverDoor for the additional fee
- SilverDoor treated the fee as VAT exempt under the financial intermediary services exemption
- FTT and Upper Tribunal disagreed with SilverDoor’s treatment of the fee
- The Upper Tribunal concluded that the card payment services were part of the wider reservation services provided by SilverDoor
- SilverDoor needed to demonstrate that it provided a financial intermediary service to be eligible for exemption
- The case highlights the complexities of identifying the true character of a supply and understanding the scope of exemption for financial intermediaries
- Parties acting in an agent capacity and charging fees for payments made in a certain manner should take note of this case.
Source: saffery.com
Note that this post was (partially) written with the help of AI. It is always useful to review the original source material, and where needed to obtain (local) advice from a specialist.
