- Bulb offered a ‘refer a friend’ scheme to attract new customers
- New customers received a £50 reward and a unique link to share with friends
- For every friend that signed up through the link, the referrer received an additional £50 reward
- HMRC believed that the VAT treatment of the two rewards was different
- The initial £50 was considered a discount on Bulb’s energy charges
- The further £50 for recruiting a friend was considered consideration for a supply made to Bulb
- The First-tier Tribunal agreed with HMRC’s view
- The reward had to be directly linked to something the referrer did for Bulb
- Simply forwarding an email to friends required little effort but was dissociable from the referrer’s status as a Bulb customer
- The refer a friend reward should not be treated as a discount
- Bulb’s appeal was dismissed.
Source:
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.
