The Court of Appeal has thrown out a VAT claim by a provider of black box telemetry systems for young drivers, rejecting £2m claim for input tax refund, saying to rule otherwise would be ‘height of artificiality’
Having failed to convince the First Tier Tribunal in May 2022 and Upper Tribunal in April 2024 of the validity of their VAT dispute, WSGIL Limited, and subsidiary, Ingenie Services Limited (ISL), took their case to the Court of Appeal.
But this was to no avail as at a two-day court hearing, the Court accepted HMRC’s overriding argument that the disputed supplies by ISL of the services of providing and fitting the devices were exempt from VAT.
ISL fitted black boxes for insurance companies, which was a requirement of taking out the car insurance aimed mainly at young drivers aged between 17 and 25. Anyone who bought the insurance had to agree to have an electronic device fitted to their car to record and transmit information about how the car was being driven.
