Graham Elliott, VAT expert at City & Cambridge Consultancy considers altered building status in J3 Building VAT case, payable orders for VAT withdrawn, care services decision reflects EU parity
‘Altered’ building?
The Upper Tribunal has overturned a decision in favour of J3 Building (UKUT0253), where the facts were unusual but a wider principle was involved. This was whether works that are so considerable by reference to the original fabric of the building could be called ‘alteration’ of an existing building, or were something else.
The case also dealt with an interesting sideshow point concerning the now notorious note 18 of group 5, schedule 8, Value Added Tax Act 1994 (VATA 1994), which purports to define when a building is no longer an ‘existing building’ for the purposes of interpreting note 16 (which deals with the various definitions of works to existing buildings which are excluded from the zero rate).
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