Nuanced TEFL meaning can confuse VAT exemption

Teaching English as a foreign language (TEFL) providers and providers of related kinds of training will want to read all 88 pages of OISE Limited V Revenue [2016] UKFTT 749 (TC) (TC05476). Whether or not the supplier is a for-profit body, TEFL is VAT exempt.

This means that defining ‘TEFL’ is an important step in determining its treatment. This should be straightforward, but it has presented difficulties over the years, probably owing to changing methods for teaching it.

This case was interesting because the basic issue was that the particular courses were aimed at TEFL teachers, and were not packaged simply as TEFL itself. Although HMRC sought to take a nuanced view of this, it had determined that most of the courses were essentially ‘teacher training’ and not TEFL. But this appeared to bypass the fact that these courses, run by Oxford Intensive School of English Limited (OISE), were aimed at teachers for whom English was also a second language. Their objective was fulfilled by looking at various subjects on the basis of total emersion in English. Some of these went into teaching techniques, but some were more general (such as a course in English drama). Some were aimed at those with advanced English, and others at intermediate level.

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