Covering letter
The attached undertaking must be signed and the form returned
to this office before any money will be refunded under the
reimbursement scheme.
It is only necessary to sign this undertaking where you
accept that you would be unjustly enriched by receiving the refund
[and associated statutory interest]* of the sums overpaid as tax to
HM Revenue and Customs, but have agreed, for the purposes of the
scheme, to reimbursing those consumers who for practical purposes
bore the amount of money being refunded.
None of the refund can be kept to cover any administrative
expenses you may incur in administering the scheme.
The undertaking
“I, the undersigned, can identify the names and
addresses of consumers whom I intend to reimburse. I will repay to
these persons, in cash or by cheque, all the money I receive from
HMRC [including associated interest]* without any deduction, for
whatever purpose, within 90 days of receiving the money and
understand that I cannot use the money for any other purpose.
Furthermore, any money I have not repaid to consumers will, without
reminder, be repaid to HMRC within 14 days of the 90 days expiring.
I will keep the necessary records as set out in the Regulations and
I will comply with any notice given to me by HMRC about producing
the records I am required to keep.”
SIGNATURE
.....................................................................
NAME
................................................................................
ADDRESS
.........................................................................
REGISTRATION NUMBER
...............................................
*If applicable
NOTES FOR CLAIMANTS ON THE REIMBURSEMENT SCHEME
The reimbursement scheme
The reimbursement scheme (the “scheme”) only
applies where you accept that by receiving a refund of sums
overpaid as tax your business would be unjustly enriched at the
consumers’ expense. This is because the consumers have for
practical purposes paid the tax charged in error and by not passing
the refund back to them your business would benefit as a result.
In such cases a refund of overpaid tax will only be made if
you agree to reimburse those consumers in accordance with the terms
of the “scheme”.
Who are the consumers?
The regulations refer to consumers, not to customers.
Consumers are all those persons who have for practical purposes
borne the whole or part of the original amount of tax overpaid by
you. They will not necessarily be your direct customers.
Who can use the scheme?
The scheme can be used by any aircraft operator (that is any
business which is currently registered for Air Passenger Duty) who
wishes to refund to consumers any money they overpaid as tax. The
scheme can also be used by those businesses which are no longer
registered; they are subject to the same terms and conditions as
businesses that are.
When the scheme does not apply
The existence of the scheme does not affect your right to
claim that you would not be unjustly enriched by the refund. Should
we reject your claim on the grounds of unjust enrichment, you still
have the right of appeal to the VAT and Duties Tribunal. If the
Tribunal finds in our favour the option will still be available for
you to use the scheme, should you so choose.
The scheme can also apply to part of a claim. In certain
cases you may not have passed all the tax charged in error on to
the consumer, because for commercial reasons you chose to absorb
some of it. For example, you could submit a refund claim for
£50,000, and agree that £30,000 was passed on to the
consumers, but ask to be allowed to keep £20,000 because you
absorbed that amount from your profits. In such circumstances only
£30,000 would be subject to the scheme. The £20,000 claim
would be considered separately by us on its merits.
The scheme’s conditions
A refund under the scheme will only be made to you if you
agree to:
(a) Sign an undertaking in the format attached. Once signed
it cannot be amended.
(b) Make all refunds to consumers within 90 days.
(c) Repay to us within 14 days any residual amounts not
returned to consumers after 90 days. No reminders will be sent. If
you fail to do this we will assess for the residue.
(d) Pass to consumers any statutory interest paid with the
refund. This is subject to the same terms and conditions as the
refund.
(e) You must keep a record of the:
• name and addresses of those consumers you intend to
reimburse;
• total amount of money paid to each consumer;
• amount of interest, paid to each consumer; and
• date the money was refunded.
How soon after the undertaking has been signed should
repayments be made?
We would normally expect you to have the scheme ready to
implement when we receive your signed undertaking and to have begun
contacting customers straight away, rather than waiting until well
into the 90 day period before doing this. A late start to refunding
the money without good cause will not be seen as a valid reason for
extending the 90 days refund limit.
Statutory interest
Where the sums being reimbursed were overpaid because of an
error made by us statutory interest will be paid. Any statutory
interest paid under this scheme is subject to the same terms and
conditions as any other money returned under the scheme and must be
refunded to consumers. This is because it is the consumer who did
not have use of the money, not the claimant who collected it from
them to pay to us. Attached to this note is a list of interest
rates used by us to calculate statutory interest. Interest is
calculated on a simple, rather than compound, basis.
Any statutory interest must be refunded in full, any residue
must be returned to us within the specified time limit of 90 days.
If you have problems working out how much interest is due to
your customers, please contact the CAT.
Checks
To ensure that you are refunding your customers in the agreed
manner, we will ask to see your “scheme” records. We
will give written notice of our intention to see these records.
The costs of administering the scheme
Any costs you incur in administering the scheme must not be
taken out of the refunds. If you do we will assess for its
return.
