Healthy debate continues over VAT on snack bars
An appeal by Morrisons failed to hit the sweet spot so the VAT status of Organix and Nakd snack bars has now been remitted back to the first tier tribunal.
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Trust HMRC to advance an argument that, for it to be right, would need to contradict not only the VAT law and case law but also the Oxford English Dictionary. "Sweetened" means "made sweet, or made sweeter", not something that is actually sweet.
Sugar is not sweetened, coffee with sugar is. It's a very simple definition to wrap your head around.
Please everyone now commence punning, I like to read them all to my gran, "o la la" she says to the best ones.
You can sweeten things without adding sugar itself though. I do it with cereal and baked goods. The fruit itself isn't sweetened, but my cereal/baking is because I add fruit which has natural sugar.
What about a coffee with artificial sweeteners? Has it been sweetened?
As an observation, what do nakd mean when they claim 100% natural ingredients? Sounds like marketing speak for "we want you to think this is healthy, please don't consider if sugar is natural or not" given the sugar content of their bars.
If Morrisons prevail, they will have gained £1m from charging VAT to consumers that was subsequently found not to have been due. Does anyone believe they will rebate any of it the consumers?
Have they reduced the selling price when selling as zero rated?
I doubt either!
In any case it would be impractical to try and refund the VAT to the consumers
VAT is, for the most part, a tax on retailers, not consumers. Chocolate Nesquik is the same price as strawberry and banana. There was a lass a couple of weeks ago whinging about the price of feminine hygiene products not falling by an eighth, as she expected. The campaign to zero rate them will lead only to increased retailer profits.
There's no control over this stuff. Just market forces and, apparently, a cartel.
When they're charging 60p for a plastic bag, I don't think they're concerned about ensuring the customers retain their hard earned cash.
If Morrisons prevail, they will have gained £1m from charging VAT to consumers that was subsequently found not to have been due. Does anyone believe they will rebate any of it the consumers?
Here's another campaign.....
https://www.change.org/p/tampon-tax-ended-where-are-the-price-cuts-dropt...