BN66 - Court of Appeal and beyond

[BrilloPad]

I'm fascinated by the above snippet from your post.

Please elaborate.

How else could we have lost in the courts so far? Its a bit like parliament ruling that drinking is going to be made retrospectively illegal and getting done for that pint you had last night. Its just not cricket. The best bit is that HMRC claim they would have won even without changing the law retrospectively!

The judges actually even said Montpelier did not do enough to get the case resolved. EG and BOK were desperate to get the case in front of the commissioners - HMRC delayed then changed the law.

[BrilloPad]

Personally, I'm not ruling out the possibility of being 6 feet under before this comes to an end.

Dont worry - we will see you safely to a donkey sanctuary when you can no longer cope.

[prozak]

How else could we have lost in the courts so far? Its a bit like parliament ruling that drinking is going to be made retrospectively illegal and getting done for that pint you had last night. Its just not cricket. The best bit is that HMRC claim they would have won even without changing the law retrospectively!

The judges actually even said Montpelier did not do enough to get the case resolved. EG and BOK were desperate to get the case in front of the commissioners - HMRC delayed then changed the law.

and this supports your statement "...but with judges being so corrupt who can be sure...." how exactly?

I was hoping for evidence of this corruption. Or at least a real good conspiracy theory.

[BrilloPad]

This thread occasionally attracts some total muppets. How do you put people on your ignore list?

[helen7]

How else could we have lost in the courts so far? Its a bit like parliament ruling that drinking is going to be made retrospectively illegal and getting done for that pint you had last night. Its just not cricket. The best bit is that HMRC claim they would have won even without changing the law retrospectively!
.

Actually it more like this.....Alcohol is illegal. So we all decided to drink mouthwash which is perfectly legal. HMRC said they belived by drinking it; it became an alcoholic drink and thus made it illegal...we asked them to prove it in law. They couldn't and instead clarified the law to say that drinking moutwash is illegal.

Hope that clears things up!! (and fights tooth decay)

[prozak]

This thread occasionally attracts some total muppets. How do you put people on your ignore list?

you mean the type that say :

"...but with judges being so corrupt who can be sure...."

you are right. What sort of muppet would say that?

[DonkeyRhubarb]

Actually it more like this.....Alcohol is illegal. So we all decided to drink mouthwash which is perfectly legal. HMRC said they belived by drinking it; it became an alcoholic drink and thus made it illegal...we asked them to prove it in law. They couldn't and instead clarified the law to say that drinking moutwash is illegal.

Hope that clears things up!! (and fights tooth decay)

Your analogy reminds me of the Jaffa Cake case. HMRC took this to court trying to argue that they were biscuits, not cakes, and should therefore attract VAT. As I recall they lost and it all hinged on what happens to biscuits and cakes when they go stale. Biscuits go soft; cakes go hard. Jaffa Cakes go hard so therefore they must be cakes.

I could imagine HMRC being bloody minded enough to try and argue that anything which contains alcohol, including mouthwash, should be liable to duty.

I think I spot a loophole here - beer flavoured mouthwash.

[screwthis]

Your analogy reminds me of the Jaffa Cake case. HMRC took this to court trying to argue that they were biscuits, not cakes, and should therefore attract VAT. As I recall they lost and it all hinged on what happens to biscuits and cakes when they go stale. Biscuits go soft; cakes go hard. Jaffa Cakes go hard so therefore they must be cakes.

I could imagine HMRC being bloody minded enough to try and argue that anything which contains alcohol, including mouthwash, should be liable to duty.

I think I spot a loophole here - beer flavoured mouthwash.

The crazy thing about this is that biscuits with a chocolate topping are subject to VAT while bisuits without chocolate and cakes with or without chocolate are not.

Tortialla chips no VAT, potato crips VAT

HMRC tried to tax Unilever claiming that their sausage casings were made of collagen, were therefore not a food and subject to VAT

And they say tax doesn't have to be taxing..

[SLB]

No.


Moreover, if you look at the grounds of appeal cited by MontP on the CNs it was not just Human Rights. It is MontP's contention that the drafting of s58 does not achieve its objective and therefore does not apply to us. This would need to be decided in the lower tax court with possible appeal to the upper tax court and beyond.

Are you saying there is another angle of attack? If so, why haven't MontP used this already? Also, if they do decide to use it, does that mean we could potentially go through 3 court (HC, CoA, SC) processes all over again?

[DonkeyRhubarb]

Are you saying there is another angle of attack? If so, why haven't MontP used this already? Also, if they do decide to use it, does that mean we could potentially go through 3 court (HC, CoA, SC) processes all over again?

Yes but, unlike the HRA angle, it would have to be started in the tax courts. There is no point in even trying to pursue this until after the SC because the tax courts would not hear our CN appeals while the matter is still with the higher courts. If we tried to force the issue through the tax courts they would just adjourn proceedings until after the SC had handed down a judgement.

PM me if you want to know more.