You would have thought that H.M. Revenue & Customs would have learned from its past mistakes.
Interestingly they seem to be arguing that they shouldn’t repay the VAT to M&S because that would constitute “unjust enrichment”. Yet if a customer fails to pay VAT when they should have, HMRC tell me that they regard the business that sold a good or service as liable for that VAT in any case. And M&S would presumably have been able to sell their teacakes for the same price regardless of whether that price contained an element of VAT…