Q&A: Supreme Court rules against Jersey Choice Ltd

The Supreme Court has unanimously rejected an appeal by Jersey Choice Ltd in connection with the withdrawal of ‘low value consignment relief’ (LVCR) for imports from the Channel Islands in 2012.

What’s it all about?

Up until Brexit mail order imports into the UK worth up to £15 were generally exempt from VAT on importation.

This was exploited by UK businesses using a practice known as ‘round-tripping’: goods such as contact lenses were exported to the Channel Islands in bulk (zero rated) broken down into individual postal packages and sent back to UK customers with the benefit of LVCR.

This avoided the output tax that would have to be charged on straightforward UK-to-UK mail order sales.

In 2011 the government announced that it would withdraw LVCR specifically for imports from the Channel Islands. Presumably it was thought unlikely that longer round trips would be...