In The English Bridge Union v HMRC [2015] UKUT 401 (23 July 2015) the UT decided to refer the question of whether bridge is a sport to the CJEU.
The English Bridge Union is the national body for duplicate bridge in England. Its shareholders are the county organisations for bridge. It organises contract bridge tournaments and charges players an entry fee to play in those tournaments.
The issue was whether contract or duplicate bridge is a sport so that entry fees were exempt under VATA 1994 Sch 9 group 10. The FTT had found that this was not the case and had decided not to refer the case to the CJEU for a preliminary ruling. Having been provided with evidence that bridge was treated as a sport in certain member states however the UT decided that it could not ‘with complete confidence’ resolve the issue of...
