UK Court Rejects Boehringer Value-Added Tax Claim Over Medicines

March 26, 2026, 7:56 PM UTC

A German pharmaceutical company isn’t entitled to recover about £21.5 million ($28.6 million) in value-added tax paid to the UK government under a program relating to supplies of medicine, a UK court ruled Thursday.

The payments by Boehringer Ingelheim Ltd. to the UK’s Department of Health and Social Care, or DHSC, lacked a “direct link” to branded medicines and weren’t made to a final consumer, making them ineligible for VAT-reducing rebates, according to the Upper Tribunal ruling.

It overturned a 2024 decision by the First-tier Tribunal in favor of the pharmaceutical company, saying the lower court ...

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