In The Claimants in the Royal Mail Group Litigation v Royal Mail Group Ltd [2021] EWCA Civ 1173, the Court of Appeal has confirmed that the claimants have no actionable private law right to compel Royal Mail Group Ltd (Royal Mail) to issue invoices which show the amount of VAT which should have been charged in respect of services that were incorrectly treated as VAT exempt.
Before 2009, there was a general assumption that all postal services were VAT exempt. In 2009, the CJEU held in R (on the application of TNT Post UK Ltd) v HMRC (Case C-357/07) (TNT) that, while the universal postal service is VAT exempt, arrangements that are individually negotiated, such as franking and tracked delivery arrangements, are not. A group of approximately 340 companies (the Traders) were of the view that the amounts they paid for services before the UK VAT legislation was revised to comply with TNT had not been VAT exempt and claimed to be entitled to VAT invoices from Royal Mail. In the High Court, the claimants sought (a) declarations that they were entitled to VAT invoices, (b) orders that the VAT invoices be provided, and (c) damages for not having been provided with VAT invoices in respect of services which TNT confirmed were, and always had been, taxable.
Source Lexology.com
