Tax analysis: In Tyler Security Ltd v HMRC, the First-tier Tax Tribunal (FTT) dismissed the appellant’s appeal against a determination made by HMRC under the Income Tax (Pay As You Earn) Regulations 2003, SI 2003/2682, reg 80. The appeal concerned whether the agency legislation in sections 44–47 of the Income Tax (Earnings and Pensions) Act 2003 (ITEPA 2003) applied to the dog-handlers engaged by the appellant to provide services to end-clients.

Tax analysis: In Mark Glenn Ltd v HMRC the First-tier Tax Tribunal (FTT) decided that supplies to women suffering hair loss were subject to VAT at the standard rate. The FTT found that ‘significant hair loss or baldness in women is not, in itself, a disability’.

Tax analysis: In Quillan, the First-tier Tax Tribunal (FTT) allowed the taxpayer’s appeal, finding that his director loan account balance was neither written off nor released for the purposes of section 415(1) of the Income Tax (Trading and Other Income) Act 2005 (ITTOIA 2005) on the liquidation of the company, contrary to HMRC’s guidance on this area in its Company Taxation Manual.

Tax analysis: In Beard v HMRC, the First-tier Tax Tribunal (FTT) decided that payments debited from a capital account, such as a share premium account, in Jersey are no more ‘assimilated to capital’ than payments from any other type of account from which distributions can be legally made. If the relevant local law does not define share premium as assimilated to share capital, it must fall into the only other category of funds held by a company available to its shareholders, distributable profit, and as such is available to be paid by a company by way of dividend.

Tax analysis: In Advanced Hair Technology Ltd, the First-tier Tax Tribunal (FTT) found that for the sample cases reviewed, hair transplant services did not qualify for the VAT exemption covering medical care.

Tax analysis: In TSI Instruments v HMRC, the First-tier Tax Tribunal (FTT) denied recovery of import VAT as input tax, holding that only the owner of the goods is entitled to recovery.

Tax analysis: In Ripe Ltd v HMRC, the First-tier Tax Tribunal (FTT) allowed the taxpayer’s appeal against closure notices and assessments denying corporation tax deductions for the amortisation of a licence of a client list and related data on the basis that the licence was not an intangible fixed asset (IFA). Although the matters in question predate the successive rules that have applied to goodwill and customer-related IFAs (known as ‘relevant assets’) since 3 December 2014, the decision is a helpful illustration of some of the basic principles applicable to the taxation of IFAs.

Tax analysis: In Sehgal v HMRC, the First-tier Tax Tribunal (FTT) allowed the taxpayers’ appeal, finding that a lease of a basement storage unit, acquired with a residential apartment under a single contract but with its own Land Registry title, was not ‘residential property’ as it did not subsist for the benefit of the apartment. As a result, the relevant land did not consist ‘entirely’ of residential property and mixed-use (non-residential) rates of SDLT applied.

Tax analysis: In Executor of Goudman-Peachey v HMRC, the First-tier Tax Tribunal (FTT) allowed the taxpayer’s appeal against a decision of HMRC that the residential rates of stamp duty land tax (SDLT) applied to the purchase of a country estate. The FTT held that the acquisition was of a mixed-use property so that non-residential SDLT rates applied.

Tax analysis: In Performance Leads, the First-tier Tax Tribunal (FTT) allowed the taxpayer’s appeal that supplies of ‘lead generation’ services to independent financial advisors (IFAs) fell within the exemption from VAT for intermediary services in relation to financial services transactions.

Tax analysis: In John Boulting v HMRC, the First-tier Tax Tribunal (FTT) allowed the appellant’s appeal, holding that the payment made to him by a company for the purchase of its own shares did not give rise to a distribution but was a wholly capital payment.

Tax analysis: In JPMorgan Chase Bank, NA v HMRC, the First-tier Tax Tribunal (FTT) held that certain services supplied within a large corporate banking group constituted a single supply of services, and that single supply did not qualify for VAT exemption.