The latest VAT rulings with implications for businesses include whether charges made by a body to parties other than students can be exempt from VAT as essential to education in the Brockenhurst case, cost sharing exemption
Ancillary supplies get a break in Brockenhurst
The case of Brockenhurst College deals with a very old subject, which is whether charges made by an eligible body to parties other than pupils/students (or, where the charge is made to parents, it is ostensibly for a supply to them rather than the child) can be exempt from VAT as relating essentially to the education of the student. Brockenhurst’s case had been referred to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) (C-699/15), and we now have an answer.
The CJEU has sided with both the First Tier Tribunal and the Upper Tribunal in confirming that such supplies are exempt as long as they are genuinely ancillary to the supply of education which is made to the student. There is no need for the supply to be literally to the student, or paid for by the student, for the supply to be ancillary to a student’s education.
