Cascade Care Limited v The Commissioners For HMRC
Decision date: 7 November 2025
Neutral citation: [2025] UKFTT 1332 (TC)
Overall AI summary confidence: high
Short overview
This short overview is intended to summarise the case, issues and outcome so far as they are supported by the judgment.
AI confidence in this short overview: high
Cascade Care supplied residential and supported living services in England and Wales and claimed those supplies were exempt from VAT under item 9, Group 7, Schedule 9 VATA 1994. Note 8's prescriptive definition of "Act" omitted the National Assembly for Wales/Senedd; the Tribunal found that omission was an inadvertent drafting error and read into Note 8 an item covering Acts/Measures of the National Assembly for Wales, so that Cascade's Welsh supplies fall within the item 9 exemption. The appeal was dismissed.
Ratio decidendi
This summary is intended to identify the ratio decidendi, meaning the legal reasons for deciding and the binding part of the decision.
AI confidence in this ratio decidendi summary: high
Where a prescriptive statutory list plainly intended to capture all bodies capable of enacting primary legislation but omits a devolved legislature by inadvertence, a tribunal may, in a rare case and with abundant certainty as to Parliament’s purpose, read words into the statute to correct the drafting error; alternatively, a conforming interpretation adding an item of the same genus may be permissible where it accords with the legislative grain and is necessary to avoid breaching EU fiscal‑neutrality principles.
Obiter dicta
This summary is intended to identify obiter dicta, meaning observations made by the way that were not necessary to deciding the case and are not binding.
AI confidence in this obiter dicta summary: medium
The Tribunal observed that (i) the always‑speaking/updating construction is of limited assistance where a statute uses a strict prescriptive list that does not readily admit a new category, and (ii) delegated legislation made by negative resolution does not automatically make a corrective reading more apt when the omission arises from later devolution changes rather than a defect in the instrument itself.