TOMS: Bolt case causes more confusion

On 24 March 2025 in the VAT case of CRC v Bolt Services UK Limited [2025] UKUT 00100 (TCC) the Upper Tribunal (UT) decided in favour of the taxpayer affirming the decision of the First-tier Tribunal (FTT) that the tour operators’ margin scheme (TOMS) applied.

This decision follows the UT’s January 2025 ruling in Sonder Europe Ltd which in finding against Sonder (overturning the FTT decision) concluded that TOMS did not apply to Sonder’s supplies (see our article ‘TOMS in distress’ Taxation 27 February 2025). The taxpayer has appealed.

In this article we will analyse the UT’s decision in Bolt and compare it with the UT’s contrasting decision in Sonder.

Time for TOMS

UK VAT legislation was written to implement the requirements and meaning of the EU Principal VAT Directive 2006/112/EC (see Box 1). The UK VAT legislation (Box 2) applies...