BT appears to have successfully lifted a stay against a decade old restitution suit in the UK High Court for VAT refunds, which originally claimed that HMRC owed them £91.8 million plus interest in overpaid tax.
The situation began in early 2009 after BT wrote to HMRC making a claim for hitherto unclaimed VAT on “bad debt relief” for the period 1st January 1978 to 31st March 1989, which arose because BT had accounted for the standard rate of VAT on its supplies to customers but, in some cases, those customers had failed to pay the operator (either in part or at all) for its supplies.
The law wrongfully said that debtors had to be forced into insolvency before the VAT could be clawed back. HMRC refused to repay the disputed amount and BT ended up appealing before the First-tier Tribunal (Tax Chamber) against HMRC’s decision (see details of the last case here).
The case ended up in a sort of legal limbo, until 2017 when HMRC made a legal application to strike out BT’s FTT case. According to The Register, BT then asked the High Court last August 2019 to lift the stay on its case there and Mr Justice Fancourt has now done exactly that.
This of course won't progress very rapidly during the current COVID-19 crisis.
Tax does have to be taxing.
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