VAT on some foods?

Not since the days when I ran my VAT registered company.

Well I quite often attend during VAT inspections of my clients and the attitude of the inspectors is to see if HMC&E is not receiving all the VAT due to it. If there's errors the other way it's not something they are looking for. If they find it then they will point it out but they are not looking for it.

Well that's not what happened at my VAT inspection. The kindly lady inspector appeared to go to great trouble to show that I had paid too much VAT, and was all-too-ready to make sure I got a refund ...

This is the wrong newsgroup for "How I met my wife" stories.

I'm sure they would if their basic tests highlighted that and if your company information was such that it was easy to check most things. In a large supermarket business they would be checking that totals of VAT on items with VAT charged were included in the VAT return and the list of zero rated items and exempt items were correctly classified. Checking that the list of standard rated items were incorrect would be lower on their priorities.

Tim, what type of business do you have?

Sole-trader, service business - part standard-rated & part exempt for VAT purposes. It was due to the partial exemption rules that the refund was due (specifically, use of the "De Minimus" rule).

That makes sense. They would have to look at the total figures to make sense of it.

If I buy a roast chicken breast and a portion of "wedges" (a fancy name for biggish chips) at Sainsbury's supermarket, I pay no VAT. On the other hand, if I buy the exact same items at the local chippie, VAT is payable.

Does HMC&E suffer from schizophrenia or has it got something to do with Lord Sainsbury being a giant benefactor to New Labour?

"Alasdair Baxter" wrote

Does the local chippie serve them *hot*, and does Sainsbury's supermarket serve them *cold* ??

Take-away cooked food always used to be free of VAT, while food served inside the restaurant wasn't. Unfortunately, a lot of restaurants abused the system by claiming that food they had served in the restaurant had actually been sold as take-away. HMCE got wise to that one and closed the loophole by imposing VAT on all restaurant food.

Chris

"Ronald Raygun" wrote

Hehe - nah, but seriously - perhaps it was the cuppa my wife made for the lady inspector which mellowed her?? :-)