Inland Revenue CLAIMS BRANCH

References T1088/2/76, RDR/95

Date 27 May 1976

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS

Please see the report below from charity division.

In view of the amount already written on this I shall be brief. Cambridge University Press wishes to reopen the question of tax exemption on their trading profits. Their copiously documented claim is in the wallet at the top of the Claims Branch file X36122 attached, together with the internal Claims Branch comments.

The justification for having a further look at this problem is based on the repercussions of the Law Reporting Society case*. It is also adduced in support of the claim that it was felt it might be unpatriotic** in 1940 to oppose the Special Commissioners' decision to the courts.

I would suggest that as a first step we ask the Solicitor to give his opinion on whether in the light of developments in Charity Law since 1940 it is considered likely that the Commissioners' decision would now be sustained in the Courts.

R D Rawson
27 May 1976

COMMENTS.

* Again I will reserve comment on the relevance of the Law Reporters' case until a later file.

** CUP's failed claim of 1940, expressly timed in the hope of keeping it out of the wartime newspapers, was certainly unpatriotic, but why did it take them five plus thirty-one peacetime years before they tried again? - A. M.