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Tax tribunal tells G4S that parking fines not tax deductible

The first-tier tribunal ruled in HMRC’s favour in rejecting G4S’s bid to set its parking fines against its tax bill.

G4S Cash Solutions had aimed to reduce their corporation tax bill by around £580,000 saying that the parking fines, which were incurred usually while delivering consignments of cash over the pavement, were a business expense and so could be used to reduce its profits for tax purposes.

HMRC’s director general of business tax, Jim Harra said: “We’ve always said fines incurred for breaking the law are not tax deductible. The tribunal has now established a clear precedent for rejecting any future such claims.”

In response, a spokesperson for G4S said: “Transporting cash is inherently dangerous and our cash teams are regularly subject to criminal attacks. By parking closer to pickup destinations, we better protect our staff, customers and the public, but in so doing we regularly incur parking infringements.”

The firm also drew attention to part of the ruling, which said: “The Statement of Agreed Facts records that during the relevant period, approximately 1000 attacks per calendar year were perpetrated against persons carrying out CViT [cash and valuables in transit] activities and approximately 65% of those were directed against the appellant. Of those attacks approximately 75% occurred during the ATP phase. In 10 addition, on average, we note that in the industry as a whole there were approximately a further 2600 aborted or suspicious incident CViT attacks per calendar year.”

G4S added: “We are disappointed by the decision and we are considering our position.”

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Natalie Middleton

Natalie has worked as a fleet journalist for over 20 years, previously as assistant editor on the former Company Car magazine before joining Fleet World in 2006. Prior to this, she worked on a range of B2B titles, including Insurance Age and Insurance Day.