News Corp UK & Ireland Ltd (Appellant) v Commissioners for His Majesty's Revenue and Customs (Respondent)
Case ID: 2021/0047
Case summary
Issue
Whether the Court of Appeal erred in finding that News UK’s supplies of digital issues of The Times, The Sunday Times and The Sun were not supplies of “newspapers” within the meaning of the Value Added Tax Act 1994 (VATA) such that they could not be zero–rated for VAT.
Facts
News UK is the publisher of The Times, The Sunday Times and The Sun. News UK contends that the digital editions of these publications are subject to zero–rate VAT pursuant to Group 3 of Schedule 8 of VATA. In two decisions dated March 2015 and April 2018, HMRC found that News UK was not entitled to zero–rate the supply of these digital editions. News UK appealed these decisions in the First Tier Tribunal, which rejected the appeal. News UK then appealed to the Upper Tribunal, which allowed its appeal. HMRC appealed to the Court of Appeal, which allowed its appeal. News UK now seeks to appeal to the Supreme Court.
Judgment appealed
Parties
Appellant(s)
News Corp UK & Ireland Ltd
Respondent(s)
Commissioners for His Majesty's Revenue and Customs
Appeal
Justices
Lord Hodge, Lord Kitchin, Lord Hamblen, Lord Leggatt, Lord Burrows
Hearing start date
22 November 2022
Hearing finish date
23 November 2022
| Watch hearing | ||
|---|---|---|
| 22 November 2022 | Morning session | Afternoon session |
| 23 November 2022 | Morning session | |
Future Judgment Update
Please note that appeal in the matter of News Corp UK & Ireland Ltd (Appellant) v Commissioners for His Majesty's Revenue and Customs (Respondent) has been heard by the Supreme Court and is currently awaiting judgment.
As soon as the judgment hand-down date is confirmed, it will be published on the Future judgments page of this website. As a very broad indication, judgments tend to follow between three to nine months after the conclusion of the appeal hearing, although in some cases it may be earlier than that. Information about judgment hand-downs is usually announced one week in advance. We are unable to give any indication of the likely hand-down date for judgments not listed on the Future judgments page.