This was an appeal by the Appellant to the Upper Tribunal against a decision of the First-tier Tribunal (‘FTT’). In its decision, the FTT rejected the appeal against HMRC for disallowing claims for input VAT totaling £273,000 on the grounds that the supplies had in fact never taken place and had awarded costs against them.
The onus of establishing its entitlement to recover input tax in respect of the supplies rested on the Appellant. It was therefore necessary for them to establish that the relevant supplies had in fact been made.
There was no direct documentary evidence to support the validity of the invoices. The FTT commented that it would have expected to see contemporaneous documentary evidence of the supplies and orders and that, in the absence of sufficient satisfactory documentary evidence, the Appellant needed to rely on the evidence of its witnesses who had been unreliable.
