{"id":53622,"date":"2020-10-23T10:31:55","date_gmt":"2020-10-23T09:31:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=53622"},"modified":"2020-10-23T10:31:55","modified_gmt":"2020-10-23T09:31:55","slug":"good-law-project-forces-hmrc-to-collect-1-5bn-in-vat-from-uber","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2020\/10\/23\/good-law-project-forces-hmrc-to-collect-1-5bn-in-vat-from-uber\/","title":{"rendered":"Good Law Project forces HMRC to collect \u00c2\u00a31.5bn in VAT from Uber"},"content":{"rendered":"

I share this from the Good Law Project<\/a>, just published:<\/p>\n

Way back in April 2017, we announced we were going to take on HMRC\u2019s\u00a0failure to assess<\/a>\u00a0Uber to VAT which corroded public trust, not only in HMRC, but in politics more generally.<\/p>\n

And it\u2019s been quite the scrap\u2026<\/p>\n

There have been lows \u2014 like us spending the money we raised in the crowdfunder trying to get a protective costs order and failing.<\/p>\n

And there have been highs \u2014 like us persuading the High Court\u00a0late last year<\/a>\u00a0that a fairly spineless HMRC was allowed to do what the legislation plainly allowed it to do and tell us it had (at last) assessed Uber.<\/p>\n

There have been further lows \u2014 as last week when the Court of Appeal refused us permission to bring our judicial review against HMRC.<\/p>\n

But ultimately\u00a0we triumphed.\u00a0Uber\u2019s US accounts<\/a>\u00a0now confirm that HMRC has assessed Uber to VAT on fares \u2014 both prospectively and retrospectively.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s all we ever wanted.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been a long, bumpy (and expensive) ride \u2014 if you\u2019ll allow me the metaphor \u2014 but we have reached our destination. I am so proud that together we have forced HMRC, belatedly, to act \u2014\u00a0Uber has now been asked to pay the \u00a31.5bn of tax they owe the public purse.<\/p>\n

We couldn\u2019t have done it without your support. So thank you.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d also like to thank the lawyers \u2014 George Peretz QC, Jack Anderson, Hui Ling McCarthy QC, Christopher Knight, David Greene, Vikram Sachdeva QC, and Alex Rook \u2014 who helped out, most for even less than the smell of an oily rag, along the way.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I well remember having a pint or two with Jo Maugham to discuss this way back in 2016 or early 2017. The question then that remains the relevant one now is why did it take an angry lawyer to force HMRC to fact and collect tax that was very obviously owing? Why didn't they want to collect \u00a31.5 billion?<\/p>\n

What was it about Uber that made them steer clear?<\/p>\n

I'd love to know the answer.<\/p>\n

But I'm also delighted that this is going to happen now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I share this from the Good Law Project, just published: Way back in April 2017, we announced we were going to take on HMRC\u2019s\u00a0failure to
 Read the full article…<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,50,97,34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-53622","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tax-avoidance","category-tax-gap","category-tax-justice","category-vat"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53622","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53622"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53622\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}