ECO Energy Sales Ltd And Others v Revenue & Customs

Sitting in public at Manchester on 2 September 2015 with further written submissions filed on 30 September 2015 and 12 October 2015.

In an application dated 12 June 2015 HMRC applied to have the following appeals struck out:

The grounds for the application are that HMRC consider the companies to be members of a Group registration, with the representative member being Freedom Renewables Limited (now in Administration). The companies have appealed on the basis that they were not members of a Group which HMRC does not consider is an appealable matter within the parameters of section 83 (1) VATA 1994.

The case for HMRC is that on 6 March 2014 the VAT group allocation was processed at which point the individual responsible for submitting the application was a director. Furthermore on 14 February 2014 Mr Suffield signed a reply to an enquiry letter from HMRC which named all of the companies intended to be included in the VAT Group. The letter confirming the Group registration was issued on 5 March 2014 and not challenged or disputed by the Appellants.

Mr Suffield explained that he had attended the hearing at short notice and that whilst he had the benefit of a skeleton argument prepared by Mr Lovell of DTE Business Advisers Limited, he had also received additional legal advice on this matter. Mr Suffield explained that he was disadvantaged by his lack of knowledge as to the detail of the legal arguments and, in those circumstances we allowed an additional 28 days for any further written submissions to be sent to the Tribunal.