Judge rules that female baldness should be seen as a 'disability' after specialist wigmaker takes HMRC to court over £280k tax bill
Female baldness can be classified as a 'disability', judges have ruled during a £277,000 landmark court fight between a specialist wig maker and HMRC.
Mark Sharp, a hair extension specialist, and former kids' TV presenter and magician Glenn Kinsey were faced with the enormous tax bill after launching hair extension and specialist wig making business Mark Glenn Ltd.
They succesfully argued their £2,400-a-year wigs, which are designed to help women with patchy hair loss, should quality as zero rated for VAT under an exemption for 'drugs, medicines, [and] aids for the disabled'.
Lawyers for HMRC had claimed that baldness should not be seen as a disability, saying it is a 'cosmetic' problem and that other issues affecting appearance such as freckles could then also be viewed the same way.
But in a groundbreaking decision, Judge Swami Raghavan and Judge Kevin Poole in the Tax Chamber of the Upper Tribunal came down on the wig makers' side, agreeing that female customers suffering from baldness should be officially seen as disabled.
In their ruling, the judges said: 'We conclude that severe hair loss in women constitutes an impairment that adversely affects the ability to carry out everyday activities.
'These activities include work, leisure, socialising, self-care and caring for others, activities which, at least to some degree, involve being visible to others in public.
'This is not because hair loss physically prevents participation in such activities, but because of the distress that would ordinarily be experienced by a woman with severe hair loss if no steps were taken to conceal it.
Female baldness can be classified as a 'disability,' judges have ruled during a £277,000 landmark court fight between a specialist wig maker and HMRC
Mark Sharp (pictured), a hair extension specialist, was faced with the enormous tax bill after launching hair extension and specialist wig making business Mark Glenn Ltd
He argued the companies £2,400-a-year wigs (pictured), which are specially designed to help women with patchy hair loss, should quality as zero rated for VAT
'That distress arises from the cultural significance of hair to female identity, societal expectations regarding appearance and the different standards applied to women.
'The women treated by the appellant, those with baldness or patchy hair loss rather than mere thinning, were, by virtue of that condition, "disabled".'
Mr Sharp and Mr Kinsey launched their company in 2001 and developed the innovative Kinsey System wigs.
The wig hair is colour-matched and placed to cover bald spots, with any remaining hair 'pulled through the mesh with a crochet needle' to lie alongside the wig hair.
'This technique means that healthy hair doesn't need to be shaved or hidden away and is instead integrated into the style,' the judges explained in their ruling.
'The Kinsey system was designed for women with severe, patchy or widespread hair loss and that it was only clients with the most serious types of hair loss who were suitable for the system.
'It was not suitable for those with merely thinning hair, as the product worked to bridge patchy areas of loss and could not work over an area of significant hair.'
The two men regarded their product as exempt from tax under a rule giving zero VAT rating to services designed to help those with disabilities or long term illnesses.
But in 2024, they were handed a VAT bill of £277,083.10 for the previous six years and told that HMRC disagreed.
Former kids' TV presenter and magician Glenn Kinsey (left) also founded the hair wig business in 2001
Their wigs work to bridge patchy areas of loss and cannot work over an area of significant hair
They appealed the decision in the First Tier Tribunal but lost. The Upper Tribunal has now reversed the ruling.
The Judges said that the term 'disability should in our view recognise that the impact of the condition may arise from the background social reality of how people with the condition are treated'.
They added: 'We accordingly consider HMRC’s purely physically based approach as too narrow when considering the impact of the condition.
'The assessment of the impact of disability should take full account of any real-world social context.
'To ignore the very real impacts a disfiguring condition might have on the everyday activity of someone seeking to go about the daily business of life, which will inevitably involve activity where one is visible to and required to interact with others, is to deny social reality.'
'Standing back, and applying the ordinary meaning of "disability", we have no difficulty in concluding that the severe hair loss suffered by the service recipients in this case constitutes a disability.'
