(1) Orsted West of Duddon Sands (UK) Ltd (appellant) v HM Revenue and Customs (respondent) (2) Gunfleet Sands II Ltd (appellant) v HM Revenue and Customs (respondent) (3) Gunfleet Sands Ltd (appellant) v HM Revenue and Customs (respondent) (4) Walney (UK) Offshore Windfarms Ltd (appellant) v HM Revenue and Customs (respondent)
Tuesday 4 – Thursday 6 February 2025
By separate Appellant’s Notices, filed on 11 January 2024, each of the Appellants appeal the Decision, dated 27 October 2023 of Judge Raghavan and Judge Bowler sitting in the Upper Tribunal (Tax and Chancery Chamber) in which the Upper Tribunal found that certain expenditure was not deductible from tax, either as qualifying expenditure under the Capital Allowances Act 2001 or as pre-trading expenditure under the Corporation Taxes Act 2009.
The Appellants in each of these cases are members of the same group of companies and are engaged in the generation and sale of electricity from wind farms they operate in various locations of the UK coast. Prior to determining, amongst other things, the size, location and layout of the windfarm, and the design of the turbines and electricity substation, each of the Appellants incurred expenditure on various environmental, metocean, geophysical and geotechnical surveys.
The central dispute is whether that expenditure qualifies for capital allowances or is otherwise deductible for the Appellants for tax purposes.In particular, whether the expenditure qualifies for plant and machinery allowances pursuant to s11 of the Capital Allowances Act 2001 (CAA 2021), and if not, whether it is deductible pre-trading expenditure under s61 of the Corporation Taxes Act 2009 (CTA 2009).
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