November 2017 is the month when taxpayers’ long-running hopes of finally receiving the payment of compound interest on retrospective VAT reclaims came to an end.

In what was no doubt a significant relief for the Exchequer, the Supreme Court issued its judgment in the high profile Littlewoods ([2017] UKSC 70) litigation, where it ultimately dismissed the taxpayer’s appeal and, in effect, found that taxpayers will only be entitled to the payment of simple interest.