[patroclo]

Playing contract bridge might make you break out in a sweat - but it does not constitute a sport, a tax tribunal has ruled.



The trick-taking card game involving the use of "high-level" mental skills and played in competing partnerships cannot be exempt from VAT charges on competition entry fees as if it were a sport, the first tier tribunal tax chamber said.

Around 300,000 people are said to play the game regularly in Britain and the English Bridge Union (EBU) had appealed against an HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) refusal to repay VAT on competition entry fees for the period between June 2008 and December 31 2011.

The union told the tribunal that the Charity Commission and the International Olympic Committee recognised bridge as a sport.

It added that HMRC recognised sports where physical skill or activity plays "second fiddle", including croquet, darts, billiards, flying and gliding.

EBU treasurer Dr John Petrie added that emails he had received from bridge organisations in France, Holland, Belgium Ireland and Poland indicated that no VAT was charged on their entry fees.

"Playing bridge involves the use of high-level mental skills - logic, lateral thinking, planning memory, sequencing and others," he said.

"Playing bridge regularly promotes both mental and physical health and studies have shown that it may benefit the immune system and reduce the chance of developing Alzheimer's disease and of mental deterioration."

But the tribunal judge Charles Hellier ruled: "To our minds, sport normally connotes a game with an athletic element rather than simply a game."

He added: "Contract bridge involves some physical activity, but not a significant amount. The physical activity is not the aim of participation, and physical skill, as opposed to purely mental skill, is not particularly important to the outcome of participation."

The EBU, which organises a "large number" of duplicate bridge competitions, said its 2012/13 total entry fee income alone was £631,000.

[1eyedjack]

Yes, quite a good effort by Petrie, but having read the full judgement I feel that he may have missed a trick, if you forgive the pun.

One of the strengths of his case was the treatment of bridge in other countries within the EU, and one of the fundamental concepts that underpin VAT is equality of treatment across EU boundaries. Rather than just relying on a few emails with other NCBOs, he might have gone the extra mile to establish positive rulings at a judicial level to substantiate those treatments. Well, maybe he did, but it did not read that way in the transcript. Indeed the tribunal went out of its way to let itself off the hook in that area for want of justification provided in evidence to refer the case to ECJ.
But at the end of the day we can only speculate whether anything would have made any difference. It does sound a bit as if Hellier had made up his mind in the first few minutes. Going to such lengths to distance himself from treatment in other countries, it makes you wonder if he doth protest too much.

The subject cropped up earlier in this thread
http://www.bridgebas...post__p__779680

PS love the use of quote marks. It reads like an article from The Week.

Distinguish
"high level" mental skills
from
high level mental skills

and
"large number" of duplicate bridge competitions
from
large number of duplicate bridge competitions

[gordontd]

This looks like a newspaper article. If so, perhaps it should have been credited.

[barmar]

 gordontd, on 2014-February-26, 16:11, said:

This looks like a newspaper article. If so, perhaps it should have been credited.

Indeed, it's from Independent.ie.

http://www.independe...l-30040426.html

[Zelandakh]

Good to see that the British government is consistent:

Quote

I believe we should have the same obligation to mental agility as we do to physical agility. Mind sports have to form UK national bodies and get together with the government to devise an acceptable amendment to the 1937 Act that clearly differentiates mind sports from parlour board games.

(Richard Caborn, Minister for Sport, in 2002)

[whereagles]

Seems like the court took a rather narrow view of the definition of "sport". I would go as far as say it borders on prejudice.

Just appeal the decision and carry on.

[Cyberyeti]

 Zelandakh, on 2014-February-27, 07:37, said:

Good to see that the British government is consistent:

(Richard Caborn, Minister for Sport, in 2002)

Don't expect Labour and Conservative British governments to be consistent on much.

[Zelandakh]

To understand this better I have been looking for the text of the quoted 1937 Act. The most likely candidate is the Physical Training and Recreation Act but as far as I can tell (without seeing the text) this is primarily about using public funds to promote physical exercise. If this is where the concept of "Sport" has come from then it is hardly surprising that it is a narrow view! But this Act does not seem to have anything to do with tax laws so it is hard to understand why this is relevant. The other possibilits would be the Finance Act 1937. That would naturally be highly relevant to the discussion but I have not yet found any reference from it relating to the case. Does anyone have more information that might help track this down?

[Lovera]

Some years ago Bridge seems can enter in Olimpic games but was not so: is it possibile to know motivation ?

[barmar]

Bridge was never in the Olympics. There was a tournament that was called the Bridge Olympiad, but it wasn't actually part of the Olympics. A few years ago there was an attempt to get bridge, chess, go, and Chinese chess into the Olympics, but the IOC eventually decided not to allow them. Now we have the World Mind Sports Games in their place.

[Cyberyeti]

 barmar, on 2014-September-27, 08:43, said:

Bridge was never in the Olympics. There was a tournament that was called the Bridge Olympiad, but it wasn't actually part of the Olympics. A few years ago there was an attempt to get bridge, chess, go, and Chinese chess into the Olympics, but the IOC eventually decided not to allow them. Now we have the World Mind Sports Games in their place.

It would also have to obey Olympic drug testing laws if admitted, so having a number of over 70s drop dead without their beta blockers (which are performance enhancing for shooting) might not be ideal.

[mikestar13]

 Cyberyeti, on 2014-September-27, 08:51, said:

It would also have to obey Olympic drug testing laws if admitted, so having a number of over 70s drop dead without their beta blockers (which are performance enhancing for shooting) might not be ideal.

+1 to this one but also believing that England should treat Bridge as a sport for tax purposes as the rest of the EU seems to do: even handed treatment of mind sports and body sports in the tax code is quite reasonable..

But the notion that Bridge is a sport in the same sense as cross country skiing or basketball and therefor needs an extensive list of banned substances like a typical Olympic sport is ridiculous on its face--but this is what the WBF and its anti-doping policy seem to be aiming at, in order to gain admission to an Olympic
Games which won't accept mind sports anyway.

[Lovera]

 barmar, on 2014-September-27, 08:43, said:

Bridge was never in the Olympics. There was a tournament that was called the Bridge Olympiad, but it wasn't actually part of the Olympics. A few years ago there was an attempt to get bridge, chess, go, and Chinese chess into the Olympics, but the IOC eventually decided not to allow them. Now we have the World Mind Sports Games in their place.

Probably it were Salt Lake City Winter Games (project to admission).

[Trinidad]

Check the following article on a suspended Italian player...

Bridge is recognized by the IOC and played by its rules... That makes it a sport in my book.

The fact that there is no drug testing performed at aunt Millie's bridge club is a red herring. There is no drug testing in my local track and field club or swimming pool either.

Rik

[blackshoe]

It appears, from the article, that if the player concerned had "turned in" (to whom and when I don't know) the paperwork he had in his hotel room, verifying, it seems, that the drugs found were prescribed for his heart, he would not have been charged.

Perhaps, when "anti-doping regulations" are in force, the CoC or tournament info should include that fact. Perhaps they should even tell players what they have to "turn in" and when.

[barmar]

 blackshoe, on 2014-September-28, 11:32, said:

Perhaps, when "anti-doping regulations" are in force, the CoC or tournament info should include that fact. Perhaps they should even tell players what they have to "turn in" and when.

Are you sure they didn't? He said he didn't know he had to turn them in. That could mean they didn't document them properly, or it could just as easily mean he didn't read the appropriate documents.

I've been going to NABCs for 20 years. I think I've occasionally glanced at the CoC's for some national events, but I certainly don't read them thoroughly every time I go.

[helene_t]

But the rationale for making sports events VAT free is probably that the government wants to promote sport because it is healthy. Drug testing may show that the competitive aspect of the activity is taken seriously but that's irelevant since it isn't the seriousness of the competition that justifies the VAT exemption.

[dicklont]

In the Netherlands bridge is a sport, even for the Treasury Departement.
This month we got the news that the VAT goes from high rate (21%) to the low rate (6%) for the rent of the venue where the bridgeclub plays.
This is an advantage for clubs that are member of the national bridge association NBB.
The reason is that bridge is a sport and clubs offer active participation in a sport as defined in the law on VAT in 1968.
Let's not complain that we had to wait for this almost 50 years.

[Lovera]

 barmar, on 2014-September-27, 08:43, said:

Bridge was never in the Olympics. There was a tournament that was called the Bridge Olympiad, but it wasn't actually part of the Olympics. A few years ago there was an attempt to get bridge, chess, go, and Chinese chess into the Olympics, but the IOC eventually decided not to allow them. Now we have the World Mind Sports Games in their place.

And why ..the IOC eventually decide not to allow them ? Thanks.

[barmar]

 Lovera, on 2014-September-29, 07:27, said:

And why ..the IOC eventually decide not to allow them ? Thanks.

They decided that the Olympics were only for athletic sports, not mind sports.