The prospect of five VAT rates in three years may seem both farcical and impractical but chancellor George Osborne can be excused for thinking his Labour shadow, Ed Balls, has a point. The UK economy needs a stimulus.
(more…)

Raising Britain’s VAT threatens not only inflation and economic recovery; it highlights the anomalies of what is taxed and what escapes. The disparity between a Jaffa cake and a chocolate chip cookie matters when the tax difference is 20 per cent rather than 8 per cent.
(more…)

Do the protestors trying to stop shoppers using Top Shop and Vodafone outlets really understand what tax avoidance is? It is what those shoppers are doing when they buy goods before the VAT rate rises.
(more…)

The increase in UK Vat rates will be used by every business with disappointing trading in 2011, but if a 2.5 per cent cut in 2008 did little to boost sales, why should a similar increase have any significant affect?
(more…)

We were told George Osborne’s first budget would be one of the most radical in recent history, but it was not. If it warrants a footnote to history it will be for the size of the numbers, not any change of direction.
(more…)

The UK government seems set to increase VAT, so should it go for a steep rise in the sales tax or extend it to a wider range of purchases?
(more…)

A Vat increase is criticised as taxing the poor, but it is also a tax on the old – whether they are rich or poor. And you don’t have to be elderly to get caught by this shift to spending taxes.
(more…)

The Treasury should not grieve too greatly at companies such as J Sainsbury (LON:SBRY) paying early bonuses to avoid the new top income tax rate. By paying during the 2009/10 tax-year the exchequer will receive 40 per cent tax now rather than 50 per cent later, and time can be more valuable than money.
(more…)

Non-dom tax status is causing much political controversy, but what exactly is wrong with paying UK tax on your UK income and foreign taxes on foreign income? If you were inventing a tax system, that seems a sound starting point.
(more…)

If the Vat cut was a damp squib, how come restoring the rate 13 months later threatens the economic recovery? Our retailers should learn to stop screaming.
(more…)