Dear Industry Colleague,

 

This is a busy week for the golf industry and by the time that you read this, events may have changed. 

The BMW PGA Championship is one of the cornerstone fixtures in the golfing calendar and launches the start of the domestic season in the UK.  The event starts on Thursday and is preceded by the wonderful Golf Foundation award ceremony on Wednesday afternoon.

Vivien Saunders OBE is in The High Court this week challenging the ridiculous inequalities that are present within the golf industry when it comes to taxation. She is seeking to prove that there are different rules for different types of business and therefore VAT distortion should be rectified across the sport. She is doing this by challenging the way affiliation fees are taxed and collected. 

If she is able to win the case on affiliation fees, then the implications could be staggering good for the proprietary sector. It should then be possible for some form of VAT exemption to be applied to all golf businesses. The case is exceedingly complex and only somebody with Vivien‘s tenacity and intellect can really grasp of all the various points. The case is outlined on page 22 along with the very reasonable request to help support the High Court action with a donation. 

 

If you own a golf course, you could stand to gain many thousands of pounds by assisting Vivien in this fight. Please make a donation - I have.

 

Best wishes Colin Jenkins