NCP Appeal - Tax Man: 1, NCP: NIL!

Coupon-mad

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7051139/Car-parking-firm-NCP-rakes-500k-year-drivers-dont-right-change.html

The company was attempting to recoup £490,000 which has already been taken by the taxman. NCP took its case to the High Court after losing a tax tribunal case last year.

But Lord Justice Newey, ruling on the case with Lord Justice Patten and Lord Justice Males, dismissed NCP’s appeal – leaving the company with a legal bill running into tens of thousands of pounds. The judge said the total sum handed over by the customer, including any overpayment, should be deemed the fee they have paid to pay to park – meaning all the money was liable for VAT.

Anyone's heart bleeding for the scumbags?

Shame that their (and the whole scam industry's) 'parking charge notices' are not taxed. They obviously should be, given PPCs claim they are the fee or price for the contract/service.

Mark2spark

Ha ha ha

The implications of this are going to be far reaching

Umkomaas

Every time they go to court, they seem to come out with a large hole in their pocket!

http://www.davidmarq.com/bama/Mayhook-V-NCP%20Judgement%20transcript.pdf

beamerguy

Brilliant

What is the difference for being charged by a machine or receiving a charge in the post ??

fisherjim

Just one more example of them being totally unable to run a business without resorting to scamming.

The_Deep

Mark2spark wrote: »

Ha ha ha

The implications of this are going to be far reaching

How so? It will only affect companies whose meters do not give change. And they still keep 80% of the overpayment.

Umkomaas

NCP said it would not comment.

Standard PPC comment.

Don't crims use 'No comment' in order to avoid self-incrimination?

onlyfoolsandparking

PPC/PPI I see some similarities here, hang em I say! Loving the comments in the Daily Snail, Vultures, thieves, scum hahahaha

Coupon-mad

beamerguy wrote: »

Brilliant

What is the difference for being charged by a machine or receiving a charge in the post ??

All of the sums these utter SCUM firms charge under the guise of 'parking charges' should be subject to VAT. Maybe HMRC will have another go, buoyed by this success and knowing that PPCs (since Beavis) describe their charges as a 'fee/price for parking'.

HMRC tried once before, to charge VAT on the punitive element of 'parking charges' (wasn't that the HMRC v VCS case?) but IIRC the PPC managed to bleat that their 'parking charges' were fines, and thus VAT exempt...

Well, they can't have it both ways. One would hope that HMRC have spotted that.

Castle

It turns out that the case was decided in the Court of Appeal, not the High Court:-
https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2019/854.html

Paragraph 18 of the judgement makes interesting reading in regards to the formation of a contract in a pay & display car park.

Coupon-mad

Yes, 18, 19 and 20 from that judgment make it clear that the offer and acceptance takes place when the paying motorist inserts the coins & hits the green button (which in the case of paying by phone would be the point when the concluding texts are exchanged, surely, when the bargain is actually made & accepted):

English law, of course, generally adopts an objective approach when deciding what has been agreed in a contractual context. Here, it seems to me that, taken together, the tariff board and the statement that "overpayments" were accepted and no change given indicated, looking at matters objectively, that NCP was willing to grant an hour's parking in exchange for coins worth at least £1.40. In the hypothetical example, the precise figure was settled when the customer inserted her pound coin and 50p piece into the machine and then elected to press the green button rather than cancelling the transaction. The best analysis would seem to be that the contract was brought into being when the green button was pressed. On that basis, the pressing of the green button would represent acceptance by the customer of an offer by NCP to provide an hour's parking in return for the coins that the customer had by then paid into the machine. At all events, there is no question of the customer having any right to repayment of 10p. The contract price was £1.50.

This is the contractual analysis in the hypothetical example where the customer has only a pound coin and a 50p piece, and therefore has no alternative but to pay £1.50 if she wishes to park in the car park. However, the analysis is the same even if it is possible for the customer to obtain the right coins, for example by obtaining change from another user of the car park. If the customer nevertheless chooses to insert £1.50 and presses the green button, it remains the case that she has accepted the offer to provide an hour's parking at that price.

This analysis may be slightly different from that of the UT, which referred to an offer by NCP to grant the right to park for up to one hour in return for paying an amount between £1.40 and £2.09. In fact the offer made by NCP is more specific, to grant the right to park for an hour in return for the coins shown by the machine as having been inserted when the green light flashes. That is the offer which the customer accepts.

This confirms what we already know to be trite law from Thornton v Shoe Lane Parking.

Given that NCP often use PDT machines alongside ANPR, this is a binding decision that can be used to support defences and POPLA appeals which argue that the contract in a PDT machine car park (unlike a free retail park) cannot possibly begin upon driving in, not least because at that point the driver has no idea whether the tariff is 50p or £50 until they stand in front of the machine & signs.

And if it was £50, they'd leave having not accepted the offer.

Thankyou NCP for wasting a silly sum of money on an appeal that has produced a Court of Appeal transcript we can use as binding case law.