BPA say "Parking enforcement on private land is not subject to VAT "

The_Slithy_Tove

Philter wrote: »

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/vat/managing/charging/vat-invoices.htm

These 2 points are interesting ones:

the time of supply (tax point)
a description of the goods or services

They'd have to say exactly what it was that you got in return for your £60 PCN (permission to park outside the white lines/permission to park for as long as you want/permission to park in a disabled bay??), and also the time at which it was supplied to you.

There are many regulations surrounding the supply of VAT liable services, and I don't believe that these companies adhere to them.

There was a relatively recent thread, I think on PePiPoo, where someone was trying to get a VAT invoice from a PPC. The PPC was saying yes, it was a contractural charge, and therefore VATable, but they refused to issue an invoice. The OP was urged to report to HMRC. Like so many threads, however, it fizzled out and we haven't (yet) seen any conclusion.

HO87

nigelbb wrote: »

It wasn't an off-the-cuff comment from someone in their PR department it was a link to a legal analysis of the VCS v. HMRC case in the Court of Appeal. The fact that the CoA held that these charges (at least in the case of VCS) are for breach of contract rather than contractual charges carries much more weight than anything that one of the BPA Towers staff may tweet.

I'm well aware of the judgment and its narrow application (permit-only car parks for starters and it applied to just four of the so-called "offence codes" VCS use) and many of the other comments, though interesting to note, fall squarely in the the field of obiter. VCS, from that perspective, was something of a damp squib tough I suspect that SR-S sees things differently. After all, he can continue to keep his yacht.

The individual tweeting may well be the same person who has engaged on various other sites over similar issues in the past. They never seem to demonstrate a good grasp of the relevance and application of case law and don't really seem to be able to form a view of it in the context of the BPA's avowed strategy.

That coupled with the the BPA's record of remarkably daft tweets in recent weeks doesn't convince me to any extent that there has been what would amount to a 180 degree about turn in their policy. Anybody, when it comes down to it, can link to case law. Doing so neither indicates that they understand it nor have the faintest idea of its practical application. The BPA policy for the last 12 months and more has been to subtly push "contractual charges", and having got POPLA to shamelessly plough that furrow a switch now would make them look more ridiculous than they ever have been.

Philter

The strongest argument on this issue remains that they say it's a contractual sum, whilst patently not treating it as such for VAT purposes. The fact that the BPA are now publicly stating that PCNs are not VAT liable, as well as this 'general fact' now being given its own entry in the Association of Corporate Counsel 'Lexology' just gives extra weight to an already existing argument, I'm not saying it's a new argument in itself.

"If you (the PPC) say that PCNs are contractual sums then why are you not adhering to any of the regulations surrounding VAT? Provide me with a VAT invoice which states what service I have received in exchange for my £60 or I'll report you to HMRC."

There are many other demands that can be made in this area.

If people would just offer the landowner a couple of quid (for example) in liquidated damages each time they commit a 'parking infringement' PPCs would go out of business. They'd have nothing to chase, because an offer covering actual loss would already have been made directly to the land owner, bypassing them completely. I personally think this is a better route than the blanket 'ignore' - which causes the costs of the PPC to go up when chasing the RK, thus giving a judge reason to accept that the actual loss includes the cost of chasing up the RK (although it shouldn't, obviously).

I know I've already said it in this thread, but that's exactly what I did recently. I offered a couple of quid to the landowner, and immediately wrote to UKPC telling them I'd done that and that the landowner had effectively refused it. I also asked them to give me a breakdown of actual loss, proof of their ability to form a contract with me, proof of their ability to take legal action on behalf of the land owner, proof of their adherence to the DPA etc etc. UKPC replied within 10 days of receipt of my letter telling me that they had cancelled the PCN as a 'goodwill gesture'.

HO87

I understand your argument. However, the entire basis of what is being put forward - purportedly by the BPA in the form of a tweet - is wrong-headed. Not that that is unusual as far as the BPA is concerned.

As so often happens case summaries skate over the details and, as ever, the devil is in the detail. What the summary states is true, except that a big but comes with it and those PCN's that are not VATable are the ones that were issued only in respect of the very specific breaches of VCS's contract offered in the car park in question - which was a permit only affair. The comment cannot be applied outside the conditions that applied when the case arose originally in 2009.

I respectfully suggest that the fact that a BPA wonk chooses to quote the most simplistic summary I've yet read of the case suppors my argument that it is a typical BPA offering, poorly thought through, poorly researched and heavily weighted. I think I originally described the tweet as off-the-cuff and I submit that was a reasonable assessment.