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TMI Blog1999 (7) TMI 659X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... om Rover Group Ltd., Vauxhall Motors Ltd., Citrogen U.K. Ltd., Peugeot Talbot Motor Co. Ltd., Ford Motor Co. Ltd. and Land Rover Ltd. The facts are stated in the opinions of their Lordships. Michael Kent Q. C. and Nicholas Randall for the commissioners. David Milne Q.C., Rupert Baldry and Elizabeth Wilson for the taxpayer. Their Lordships took time for consideration. 1 July. Lord Slynn of Hadley. My Lords, British Telecommunications Plc. ("B.T.") buys a large number of motor cars annually from different manufacturers. The cars are delivered by transport companies on behalf of the manufacturer to B.T.'s premises or at its direction. There is thus no intermediate wholesale or retail dealer. B.T. pays input value added tax to the manufacturer on the cost of transport and delivery; it seeks to set this off against its liability for output tax. Whether it is entitled to do so, and the commissioners contend that it is not, depends on whether the supply of the car and the provision of the transport are separate supplies for VAT purposes, or whether there is one supply of a delivered car. In the former case, B.T. can deduct the input tax paid on transport costs; in th ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ;s claim and therefore the transactions to which it relates, occurred before the Value Added Tax Act 1994 came into force it is convenient to refer to that Act, a consolidating Act (as the VAT tribunal did), rather than to the Value Added Tax Act 1983, since there are no material differences. By section 19(2) of the Act of 1994: "If the supply is for a consideration in money its value shall be taken to be such amount as, with the addition of the VAT chargeable, is equal to the consideration." And by section 21(2)(b): "For the purposes of this Act the value of any goods imported from a place outside the member States shall be taken to include the following so far as they are not already included in that value in accordance with the rules mentioned in subsection (1) above, that is to say . . . (b) all costs by way of commission, packing, transport and insurance up to the port or place of importation." The Value Added Tax (Input Tax) Order 1992 (S.I. 1992 No. 3222) made pursuant to section 14(10) of the Act of 1983 (section 25 of the Act of 1994) (which empowers the Treasury to provide for the exclusion from any credit in respect of input tax of any specified s ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... r supply of goods or services any more than it provides that packaging and commission are part of such supplies. Like Nourse L.J., I fully agree with the statement of Mr. P. M. Horsfield Q.C. in Plantifor Ltd. v. Customs and Excise Commissioners 1997 VAT Tribunal Decision 14848 at p. 16, para 4.1 that: "Prima facie, therefore, article 11A has nothing to do with the identification of a supply, but operates, when the supply has been identified, [under the earlier titles of the Sixth Directive] to quantify the taxable amount in respect of the supply . . . " The question thus remains, as under the Order of 1992, as to whether there was here simply "the supply . . . of a motor car." The tribunal and Dyson J. set out the main provisions of the six contracts for the supply of motor cars from the six manufacturers to B.T. which had been taken as samples. I refer to those decisions without repeating all the details of the contracts. There are differences between the terms contained in the contracts made by Rover, Vauxhall, Citroën, Ford, Land Rover and Peugeot, but there are some common threads. Thus B.T. has the ability to order the number of cars it requires an ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... contract does not so provide, is charged for additionally and it is in our view collateral to the main supply. As a matter of convenience, the transport is provided by or on behalf of the sellers of the cars, but it is in our view a physically and economically distinct supply which could be provided for quite easily by the purchasers themselves. The amount of the consideration for the delivery of the vehicles is not, as we have said, a matter which we have any basis for challenging. Where that consideration is separately and exclusively stated, no apportionment is required: where it is not so stated, an apportionment will be required to quantify the delivery charge (and, where relevant, a charge for the first service) which will then be deductible." Dyson J. agreed with that conclusion. He attached importance to the fact that the delivery service was an optional extra which increased the amount charged. He said that the service of delivery is both physically and economically dissociated from the supply of a car and that, had he not found for the Commissioners on the basis of article 11A(2)(b), he would have dismissed the appeal. Nourse L.J., with whom the other members of th ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... n the Value Added Tax Act 1983, Schedule 6 Group 7 exempted "the supply of services, and, in connection with it, the supply of goods" by a "registered medical practitioner." The question was whether the supply of medicines and other goods was part of the service of providing medical care. The European Court said, at pp. 839-840: "On the other hand, indent (c) provides that the member states are to exempt from value added tax 'the provision of medical care in the exercise of the medical and paramedical professions.' It is clear from the position of that indent, directly following the indent concerning hospital care, and from its context, that the services involved are provided outside hospitals and similar establishments and within the framework of a confidential relationship between the patient and the person providing the care, a relationship which is normally established in the consulting room of that person. In those circumstances, apart from minor provisions of goods which are strictly necessary at the time when the care is provided, the supply of medicines and other goods, such as corrective spectacles prescribed by a doctor or by other author ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... Whether the transaction in question comprises a bundle of features and acts regard must first be had to all the circumstances in which the transaction occurs." Customs and Excise Commissioners v. Madgett and Baldwin (trading as Howden Court Hotel) (Joined Cases C-308/96 and C-94/97) [1998] S.T.C. 1189 was a case where hotel owners provided a package which included transport to Devon from the north of England. The European Court accepted that where services habitually associated with travel were provided by third parties and took up a small proportion of the package price compared to the accommodation these were "a means of better enjoying the principal service supplied by the trader." They were thus "ancillary." Where, however, services went beyond those traditionally provided and "cannot be carried out without a substantial effect on the package price charge . . . such services are not to be equated with purely ancillary services." The Card Protection Plan case [1999] 3 W.L.R. 203 was concerned with the supply of two services whereas in the present case B.T. was supplied goods (a car) and a service (delivery by a third party). The question is t ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... n by B.T. Where the vehicle is to be delivered, however, it seems the property passes on the earlier of delivery or payment. In the Peugeot contract payment is due monthly in arrears after delivery except where delivery is to be in batches when payment is due after each delivery of a batch. Risk passes on delivery; the property passes on the earlier of delivery or payment. In the Ford contract payment is due within ten days after receipt of an invoice. Risk passes on delivery; property passes on the earlier of delivery, payment in whole or part or the issue of vehicle availability sheets so that it seems that in the present contract property will pass usually on delivery. In the Land Rover contract the contract is subject to "the standard conditions of contract for the purchase of goods set out in B.T. plc Form MD 801 (edition 1986)." These are not included in the papers before the House but they may well include conditions similar to those in clause 4 of the other contracts. In my view here if the transaction is looked at as a matter of commercial reality there was one contract for a delivered car: it is artificial to split the various parts of the transaction into dif ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... supply to a taxable person of a motor car is disallowed by article 7(1) of the Value Added Tax (Input Tax) Order 1992 ("the Blocking Order"). The argument for B.T., which was decided in their favour by the tribunal and Dyson J. (who allowed the commissioners' appeal but for different reasons) and by the Court of Appeal, is that the VAT which is charged on the services of transportation and delivery does not fall within the scope of the Blocking Order, as the tax was charged not on the supply of the motor cars but on a separate supply of transport and delivery services. In other words, the contractual arrangements between B.T. and the manufacturer gave rise to two supplies, not one. The answer to the question whether the courts below were right to sustain this argument must depend upon an analysis of the extent of the transaction for the supply to B.T. of the motor cars. Was the supply of the services of transportation and delivery merely incidental or ancillary to the supply of the motor cars? Or was it a distinct and independent supply which can properly be regarded as separate from the supply of the motor cars and thus outside the scope of the Blocking Order? It is ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... , as the respondents contend, whether the two supplies are "physically and economically dissociable". That phrase is taken from the decision of the European Court of Justice in Commission of the European Communities v. United Kingdom (Case 353/85) [1988] E.C.R. 817, 839-840, para. 33. In Customs and Excise Commissioners v. Wellington Private Hospital Ltd. [1997] S.T.C. 445, 462F-G Millett L.J. suggested that it expressed the same concept as that which is contained in the words "integral," "incidental" and "ancillary." But the facts and the questions to be decided in those two cases were different from those in the present case. In Commission of the European Communities v. United Kingdom the problem related to the interpretation of the term "medical care" in the context of article 13A(1) of the Sixth Directive, and in particular as to whether the exemption covered goods such as corrective spectacles supplied to patients in connection with the provision by the doctor or other authorised person of medical care. As Millett L.J. recognised in the Wellington Private Hospital case, at p. 459C-E, the court was not laying down a general rul ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... y be considered to be incidental expenses by the member states. " I think that this paragraph helps to show that the supply of services such as transport of goods from the factory to the purchaser's premises can be treated as incidental or ancillary to the supply of the goods by the manufacturer to the purchaser, although this need not be so, and accordingly is not deemed to be so, in all cases. In the present case the essential feature which can be seen in each of the sample transactions is the purchase by B.T. from the manufacturer of a delivered motor car. Property and risk were to remain with the manufacturer until the point of delivery. B.T. could have gone to the factory to take delivery of the motor car, but it was more convenient to get the manufacturer to deliver the car to B.T. This seems to me to be a good example of the kind of case, in the context of a transaction which involves the supply of both goods and services, which the court had in mind when it referred in Card Protection Plan Ltd. v. Customs and Excise Commissioners (Case C349/96) [1999] 3 WLR 203, 227, para. 30 to a service which did not constitute for customers "an aim in itself, but a means ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... nces the rules compel such a result because, on their true construction, they leave no room for any alternative: see Svenska International Plc. v. Customs and Excise Commissioners [1999] 1 W.L.R. 769. But in this case we are being asked to draw a conclusion from the facts, not to construe the statutory rules under which VAT is charged. The same treatment of similar transactions for VAT purposes can be achieved in this case by recognising that the supply of the transport and delivery services to B.T. by the manufacturers formed part of the same transaction as the supply of the motor cars. For these reasons, and for the reasons given by my noble and learned friend Lord Slynn of Hadley, whose speech I have had the advantage of reading in draft and with which I agree, I, too would allow the appeal. LORD CLYDE. My Lords, I have had the advantage of reading in draft the speeches of my noble and learned friends Lord Slynn of Hadley and Lord Hope of Craighead. For the reasons they give, and with which I agree, I, too, would allow this appeal. LORD HUTTON. My Lords, I have had the advantage of reading in draft the speeches prepared by my noble and learned friends, Lord Slynn of Hadley a ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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