In article , "Dave Plowman (News)"
writes
In article ,
Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
Tim Watts wrote:

No - but apparently we cannot VAT exempt a class of items as we wish (eg
like books, children's clothes other "essential" items used to be zero
VAT rated).

As a matter of interest, why should books be zero rated? They are hardly
an essential item. And why children's clothes? Are all parents
necessarily poorer than adults who buy clothes?

IIRC, the UK government can set the individual VAT rate anyway.

The minimum EU rate for most things is 15% - yet it's 20% in the UK. Which
of course must be the fault of the EU. There are individual items which
can be rated lower. Can't be bothered to look them up.

VAT is a very convenient tax for a Tory government as it allows them to
have lower income tax rates. Thus moving the tax burden to the lower paid.

So why do you want to make it worse by adding vat to children's clothes
books etc?
AIUI once an item has been rated for VAT it cannot subsequently be
de-rated. A national government can set its own national rate above the
minimum (doesn't the EU get a cut?) but cannot reduce the rate on
anything rated below that. So for example energy is rated at 5%. We
cannot reduce that to zero but we could increase it to say 10% or even
20% BICBW
There is (or was?) a subtle difference between "exempt" and "zero rated"
but I cannot now remember what it was.
--
bert