In this month’s round-up of key VAT decisions, Graham Elliott assesses the tribunal rulings in Northumbria Health Care NHS Trust, Step by Step and Balhousie
Hospital car parks
The First Tier Tribunal (FTT) in Northumbria Healthcare NHS Trust (TC08056) is a test case about whether VAT applies to parking charges in NHS car parks. The tribunal’s decision is that VAT does apply (being treated the same as normal car park charges).
There were three arguments to the contrary: that the supply was not a ‘business’ per se, that the supply was not business as being a function of a public body, and that the supply was exempt from VAT as being ancillary to medical care.
The decision does justice to all three bases, and decided that both ‘non-business’ arguments failed. Of perhaps greater general interest is the analysis under which the exempt ancillary supplies point also failed.
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