So…pasty tax eh?
There is a fine line between the sublime and the ridiculous – and it would seem that yet again our Prime Minister has failed miserably in defining what side he stands on.
I’ve been looking into this, and according to the Treasury guide food is hot if it is ‘above ambient air temperature when provided to the customer’.
As one rather astute journo pointed out: “a sausage roll sold at 20c in summer would be below the ‘ambient air temperature’ and VAT-free. In the winter it would be warmer than the surrounding air and therefore liable for VAT. Someone waiting at the front of a queue for a fresh sausage roll might pay VAT because it is still hot, while someone at the back might pay less because it has gone cold.”
How we gonna get round that one David?
Perhaps we could draw out some new legislation that requires all bakeries must be kept at 18c at all times? And of course there are ways around it, you could always buy the pasty cold and, once money has exchanged hands, ask the baker to heat it up for you. That is unless we want to start taxing good customer service. It’s an option.
It’s not all bad news though; baked bread will remain VAT free, as it is considered a basic food item. Anyone who does not believe pasty or pies to be a basic food item has never been to Devon/Cornwall, or a football match.
You can imagine the chants on the terraces of “who ate all the pies”, being rallied with calls of “that rich bastard! That rich bastard!”
Bakers across the country are, unsurprisingly, up in arms about this. Cameron is lucky we aren’t French, or there would be a guillotine in Whitehall before Big Ben struck four. Officials say the changes (which come into operation on October 1) will raise £50million in the current financial year, rising to £120million in 2016/7. Okay, but how much could be raised by taxing the super-rich?
As News Thump pointed out, the government may very well defend it’s decision to slap “VAT on sales of hot pasties by insisting that a tax on bakers is only one letter away from a tax on bankers.”
Lets not be too cynical here, perhaps we have got it all wrong. During the recent Wall Street uprisings there has been an incredible upswing in public opinion for bankers to take more responsibility. Maybe we should have been directing our anger and frustrations at the far darker and insidious organization: Greggs.
Does David know something we don’t? Probably not…
But it’s comforting to know that he can take away our JOBS, and he can take away our NHS, but he’ll never have our PASTIES!
Isn’t Britain great?
No comments:
Post a Comment