Supreme Court Rejects Bolt Appeal in £190m VAT Dispute

The UK Supreme Court refused Bolt permission to appeal in its VAT dispute with HMRC, leaving in place the Court of Appeal ruling that Bolt cannot use the tour operators’ margin scheme (TOMS) in the way it argued.
HMRC’s position is that Bolt must account for VAT on the full fare rather than only on its commission margin; the disputed VAT is estimated at about £190m.
The decision effectively ends a long-running case and strengthens HMRC’s stance that ride-hailing platforms are not entitled to TOMS under the existing rules.
The ruling is likely to affect Uber’s separate but similar VAT challenge over a reported £1bn bill, which has been waiting on the outcome of Bolt’s case.

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.