Andrew Jackson reviews the opinion and assesses its likely impact on the UK VAT treatment of portfolio management services.
In June 2007 the European Court of Justice (CJEU) gave its judgment in the case of JP Morgan Fleming Claverhouse Investment Trust PLC (JP Morgan) (C-363/05) [2008] STC 1180. Readers will recall that that case examined whether the management of an investment trust qualified for exemption from VAT. Not surprisingly it ruled that the UK's different treatment of the management of closed-ended funds in comparison to open-ended funds was contrary to the principle of fiscal neutrality which precludes economic operators carrying out the same transactions from being treated differently for the purposes of levying VAT.
Some five years later in a case that naturally...
