Tax Treaty Case Law around the Globe 2025

1. Introduction

The UK Supreme Court (by a majority of four judges to one) upheld the Court of Appeal’s decision in 2023 that had unanimously reversed the previous decisions of the First Tier Tribunal and the Upper Tribunal. These and the Court of Appeal’s judgments have been discussed previously in this series of volumes. The United Kingdom is, as suspected, the only country in the world where a tax appeal can pass through four different levels of appeal hearings in the normal course of events. This is certainly not the only case in recent years that has been heard at all four levels and where the final decision has differed from that at first instance. This is both a time consuming and expensive use of resources to hear tax appeals and is difficult to justify. However, it arises from the reorganization of the UK tax tribunals and has been a feature of the UK tax scene for a number of years. On this occasion, seven judges concluded that the taxpayer should prevail while four agreed that His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) should do so.

2. Facts of the case

The factual background has been explained in previous comments on this case. They are relatively complex and can be illustra...