OM Cash and Carry Limited v The Commissioners for HMRC

Decision date: 22 July 2025

Neutral citation: [2025] UKFTT 891 (TC)

Overall AI summary confidence: high

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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

This case concerns HMRC's application to strike out OM Cash and Carry Ltd's appeal against a £13,596,151.25 demand for excise duty and import VAT on imported gutka. The Appellant did not attend the hearing; the Tribunal allowed HMRC to amend its strike-out grounds, proceeded in the Appellant's absence, and struck the appeal out for having no reasonable prospect of success. The Tribunal held that gutka is chewing tobacco and excise duty applies to the weight of the whole product (net of packaging); the import VAT element was also not challenged successfully.

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

The Tribunal treated a product that "includes tobacco" and is prepared to be chewed as falling within the statutory definition of chewing tobacco regardless of the proportion of tobacco present, and where excise duty is expressed as a rate per kilogram for a tobacco product the duty applies to the weight of the whole product (excluding packaging) unless the statute provides otherwise. The Tribunal also held it was proper to permit amendment of HMRC's strike-out grounds where the amendment corrected cited provisions, was not novel, and the other party had a reasonable opportunity to respond.

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 judgment expressed that policy or commercial-fairness arguments (e.g. disproportionate commercial impact) cannot override clear statutory wording in the Tribunal's assessment. It noted that production-account regulations (Reg 14 of the 2001 Regulations) concern manufacturing not importation and were irrelevant, and that absence of an unfiled unspecified document ("Memo from Vishnu") did not justify refusing strike-out.

Warning

Some repetition and duplicated material in the provided chunk. Notes contain some repetition and duplicated material.

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