pasty tax

[Alarm]

Bakers had different rules, even as it stands ambient temperature comes into it.

But your going to argue that too I bet.

3.4.3 Hot Food

Many bakery products, particularly bread, pies, pasties and other savouries, are baked on the retail premises, and are sold whilst still hot. If you sell products that are incidentally hot simply because they are freshly baked and are cooling down, and you have no intention of supplying them to be eaten whilst still hot they can be zero-rated. However, if you sell hot food specifically for consumption whilst still hot, then this is a supply in the course of catering and standard-rated. The borderline between “freshly baked” and “hot take-away” food can be a difficult one, and if you sell any hot food you are advised to read Notice 709/1 Catering and take-away food which sets out the distinction in more detail. If you are still in any doubt contact our Helpline.

So have a read of 709/1

 

[conny]

Surely if there has to be VAT it should not be levied on 'Essentials' such as food, electricity, gas etc?
Mankind cannot live without these things but he can live without mobiles, beer, certain electrical items.
Don't give me the line,"Well doing this makes everyone pay the same."
Joe Bloggs from the local garage goes himself or sends an apprentice to buy a pasty from Greggs/Sayers etc. Gets no expenses back in his paypacket!!
Lord Laughing my Socks off gets his secretary to pay out of the petty cash tin then claims expenses on his wage chit and gets back what he didn't pay out in the first place!!
Just a quick question by the way.
Where do you have to live/work that it costs £3.20 for a pasty and £2.32 for a sausage roll??????

 

[Alarm]

New Brighton?

 

[conny]

Haven't been there in donkeys years but I doubt you would pay those prices.
These prices were displayed on the 6.00 O'clock news and I thought they must be buying them from Harrods or somewhere! Certainly wouldn't pay those prices around here at any bakery/shop.

 

[Nige F]

Surely if there has to be VAT it should not be levied on 'Essentials' such as food,Mankind cannot live without these things :

Man cannot live by bread alone - Tax on Bibles , and the Koran

 

[JohnD]

No VAT on books in the UK

No VAT on food sold as groceries sold in the UK.

However there is VAT on Restaurant food. When VAT was introduced more than 40 years ago I suppose Parliament decided at the time that hot food sold to take way was a meal rather than groceries. At that time Bakers' shops mostly sold bread and cakes. The bread was sometimes fresh from the oven and might stoll be warm.

The question of whether that is right or not is quite different to the question of whether hot food served from an indian restaurant, or a chip shop, should be taxed differently from hot pies sold from Greggs.

 

[Blasphemous]

As the questioner stated last night on BBC Question Time, 'why is there no VAT on Caviar?' It alluded to there being a divide between the 'haves' and the 'have nots' but I don't believe that is the case here. I think they probably have looked at it and seen an imbalance between takeaways and bakeries and they have addressed that imbalance. But that imbalance should never have been there in the first place. Lots of people will purchase Fish and Chips as a weekend evening meal. As conny states, lots of people purchase baked products as their lunch time meal. Most of us don't eat such food all of the time as we're more aware of nutrition/health than we were 20 odd years ago. But that doesn't make such foods an exclusive item that should therefore incur a tax. They are food items and it is fundamentally wrong to tax food. I think it's the thin end of the wedge.

 

[AronSearle]

Surely if there has to be VAT it should not be levied on 'Essentials' such as food, electricity, gas etc?

Electricity is already charged VAT at 5% and has been for ages.

Like I said earlier, this and the successive governments are simply tax and spend junkies.

 

[AndrewSchofield]

I think the one thing i can't grasp is that there is a different price for the same product based on its temperature when they serve it to you. I'd quite happily eat a pie/pasty hot or cold for my lunch whilst wandering around the shops (if I was taking it to the local park before eating it it may well be cold by the time I eat it anyway)). But i'd never walk into a chip shop, ask for Fish and Chips but ask for it cold, so i can understand that there'd never be a different price for food from a chip shop..?

 

[JohnD]

The original logic appears to have been:

Is it Food sold as Groceries? If so, no VAT

Is it a Meal, served in a restaurant to eat-in or take away? If so, VAT.

You might or might not agree that this was a good division. Back around 1970 "poor people" were more likely to buy a pound of sausages and a bag of potatoes for their dinner, and "rich people" were more likely to be the ones who went to a restaurant, so the logic used protected necessary staples from tax, but there was still a concept of "luxury goods" being more highly taxed.

In those days the idea of calling Macdonalds a "restaurant" would have seemed weird.

 

[Blasphemous]

In those days the idea of calling Macdonalds a "restaurant" would have seemed weird.

Just in 'those' days John...? I struggle to see it as food. My main test criteria for food is it has to have a 'taste'... McDonalds fails my test. Why kids love it is beyond me. I'm not against burgers, I like Burgerking but I truly find McDonalds to be without any kind of meat/grilled taste. My son loves going there though! May be your taste buds deteriorate with age?

 

[Brigadier]

The clue's in the title - Value Added Tax. Warming it up explicitly for the purpose of someone eating it is "value added". Serving something straight from the oven isn't (if it had to be heated up to make it what it is anyway e.g. bread).
Whether it goes cold before you eat it is irrelevant.

And Pastygate is a misnomer anyway - most people who know about Greggs go for the sausage rolls!

 

[Brigadier]

In those days the idea of calling Macdonalds a "restaurant" would have seemed weird.

Just in 'those' days John...? I struggle to see it as food. My main test criteria for food is it has to have a 'taste'... McDonalds fails my test. Why kids love it is beyond me. I'm not against burgers, I like Burgerking but I truly find McDonalds to be without any kind of meat/grilled taste. My son loves going there though! May be your taste buds deteriorate with age?

I completely agree on McD burgers being utterly without taste - BK Double Whoppers on the other hand..........

 

[Blasphemous]

The clue's in the title - Value Added Tax. Warming it up explicitly for the purpose of someone eating it is "value added". Serving something straight from the oven isn't (if it had to be heated up to make it what it is anyway e.g. bread).
Whether it goes cold before you eat it is irrelevant.

And Pastygate is a misnomer anyway - most people who know about Greggs go for the sausage rolls!

A Pie, Pasty, Sausage Roll etc is made by heating the product (the pastry). Therefore the 'heating' of the product is a requirement not a serving suggestion. Indeed, Fish & Chips, Chinese, Indian, Pizza etc etc, all require heating in order to be eaten. Unless you have a some strange liking for raw potatoes, fish, meat etc.

 

[Biker1959]

The clue's in the title - Value Added Tax. Warming it up explicitly for the purpose of someone eating it is "value added". Serving something straight from the oven isn't (if it had to be heated up to make it what it is anyway e.g. bread).
Whether it goes cold before you eat it is irrelevant.

And Pastygate is a misnomer anyway - most people who know about Greggs go for the sausage rolls!

VAT comes from the fact that it is a SALES TAX. You buy a widget for £10 and sell it for £20 you charge VAT on the Value Added, i.e your sale price.