Upper Tribunal Clarifies VAT Exemption Criteria for Cosmetic and Aesthetic Medical Treatments

• The Upper Tribunal (UT) considered whether Illuminate Skin Clinics Ltd’s cosmetic and aesthetic treatments qualified as VAT-exempt ‘medical care’.
• The First-tier Tribunal (FTT) had previously denied the exemption, finding the services were not ‘medical care’.
• The UT rejected most of Illuminate’s appeal grounds but agreed the FTT assessed ‘therapeutic purpose’ too narrowly and should have used a broader, multifactorial analysis.
• The UT partly allowed the appeal, remitting the case to the FTT to reconsider the therapeutic purpose of the treatments.
• The decision clarifies that VAT exemption applies only where the principal purpose of treatment is therapeutic, and sets out how tribunals should assess this, impacting future cases in the sector.

Source: rpclegal.com

Note that this post was (partially) written with the help of AI. It is always useful to review the original source material, and where needed to obtain (local) advice from a specialist.

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