William Watson recaps developments over the past year regarding the ability to recover VAT on services supplied in connection with the management of defined benefit pension schemes, in light of the PPG case.
One of the more important VAT cases last year was the decision of the CJEU in PPG (Fiscale eenheid PPG Holdings BV cs te Hoogezand v Inspecteur van de Belastingdienst/Noord/kantoor Groningen (C−26/12) [2014] STC 175).
HMRC has yet to provide definitive guidance in response but in my view there is already a clear way ahead for many employers. The PPG case involved a Dutch group that established a pension fund for its employees which as a matter of law had to be a separate entity. PPG commissioned supplies of pension administration...
