The court has ruled against HMRC after it issued a £575,000 VAT assessment notice to Cambridge University Boathouse Limited (CUBL), after it claimed input VAT on the construction of a boathouse
The First Tier Tribunal (FTT) ruled that the beneficiary of a lease to a boathouse owned by CUBL, was the rowing club rather than the rowers themselves, and the sporting exemption did not apply to the supply which meant that CUBL was able to claim input VAT worth £575,000. The construction of the rowing club was valued at £4.9m and was buit for the use of a number of different Cambridge university rowing clubs.
CUBL owns the boathouse which it licenced to three Cambridge university rowing clubs, all of which are companies limited by guarantee. The boathouse claimed input VAT on the basis that the supply of the boathouse to the clubs was a standard rated supply under the Value Added Tax Act 1994 (VATA).
