A shed company which claimed it’s not susceptible to pay the trade levy has misplaced its case.
Perth-based Gillies and Mackay Ltd took the Building Business Coaching Board (CITB) to an employment tribunal in Dundee arguing levy checks for 2022 and 2023 had been invalid.
Its director Cara-Anne Mackay claimed 76 in keeping with cent of the company’s paintings used to be “brand-led” in advertising and marketing sheds and summer season homes, now not setting up them.
Mackay claimed that the CITB’s competition that her company used to be a building trade used to be “now not supported by means of regulation or truth” and that handiest 4 of her 22 staff had been founded in manufacturing.
She mentioned the “worth of the corporate is in keeping with the logo” and accused the CITB of “mistaken reliance on out of date knowledge” in keeping with the company’s earlier merchandise.
In 2021, the company additionally manufactured window frames and doorways. On the other hand, Mackay instructed the tribunal a call used to be made in overdue 2022 to discontinue this stuff, and so they had been withdrawn from the marketplace in 2023.
The tribunal, which used to be hung on 22 October 2025, heard that during October 2022, the company effectively implemented to the CITB for a £2,400 grant to coach joiners.
The CITB then imposed the 2022 levy at the company in 2023 and argued on the tribunal that its levy review used to be right kind.
In a judgment revealed this week, Employment Pass judgement on Murdo Macleod disregarded the company’s enchantment.
“It is a trade which exists in an effort to manufacture and erect structures in gardens of consumers who acquire them from them. That could be a building trade job, and it’s the number one serve as of the trade,” he mentioned.
The pass judgement on mentioned that the company’s advertising and marketing activites handiest occur “for the reason that corporate sells shoppers lawn sheds and identical merchandise”.
