Revenue and Customs Brief 44/2014

The ECJ found that a pension fund which pools investments from a number of defined contribution occupational schemes could be treated as a Special Investment Fund (SIF) and as such the fund management services it received qualified for VAT exemption. Business that have accounted for VAT on pension fund management services supplied to pension funds which could now be regarded as a SIF, may file a claim with HMRC going back over a period of four years for the overpaid VAT. Alternatively, if a defined contribution scheme has suffered any VAT, you should consider getting in touch with the supplier to determine whether the supplies should have been treated as exempt from VAT as (management).