The First-tier Tribunal has recently considered yet another case on the meaning of plant. In fact, this was a dual appeal from two connected companies: Cheshire Cavity Storage 1 Ltd and EDF Energy (Gas Storage Hole House) Ltd (TC7301). As so often, the nature of the asset itself (gas cavities in this instance) will be of very limited relevance to most readers, but the lessons emerging from the case (which HMRC won) are of much wider interest, most particularly for trades that involve or include storage. It is something of a cliché, but still an essential starting point, to quote the century-old non-tax case of Yarmouth v France (1887) 19 QBD 647, in which the term plant was defined to include ‘whatever apparatus is used by a business man for carrying on his business – not his stock-in-trade which he buys or makes for sale; but all goods and chattels, fixed or moveable, live or dead, which he keeps for permanent employment in his business’. All statutory references in this article are to CAA 2001.
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