Leslie Allen and Waqar Shah (Mishcon de Reya) examine a recent decision on VAT treatment of contingent discounts and credit notes
The First-tier Tribunal in Kumon Educational UK Company Ltd v HMRC [2015] UKFTT 84 (reported in Tax Journal 6 March 2015) decided that a reward payment made by Kumon to its franchisee/instructor should be treated as a contingent discount; and as such was deductible from income for VAT purposes.
Kumon provides educational services for five to 17 year olds which supplements traditional school lessons. Its business model is to offer franchises of its teaching methods to instructors who each pay a ‘franchise fee’ based on a fixed amount per...
