For [Bad username or unknown identity: andrewducker.] ...

[green_amber]

.. when is a crisp not a crisp? When it's a Pringles!

(Because they taste of sick and ARE NOT FOOD says Surliminal. But . :)

See Procter & Gamble v HMRC [2008] EWHC 1558 (Ch) and in particular the glorious write up here. (THis is the same guy who explained Net Netrality entirely usingg LOL cats.He is the Charlie Brooker of IT law.)

Food gets a o% VAT rate. But potato chips and potato crisps get 17.5% VAT food as "snack food", the case explains.

This might make you think that that " the intention was to classify food like potato crisps as non-zero for policy reasons. But the judge says (perhaps with tongue in junk-filled cheek), in dismissing Revenue’s policy arguments (that the idea of denying the zero rate to potato crisps was an anti-junk food policy):

[The Tribunal below accepted] that in general the intention of Parliament was to standard-rate food that was not purchased primarily for the purpose of nutrition. However, one must be very careful about reading too much into the statutory provisions. It cannot, in my view, be said that the legislation shows a clear policy to tax “junk food”. What difference, one might ask, is there between a turnip crisp and a potato crisp in terms of its “junkiness” or otherwise? One might think that the answer is very little and yet the former is zero-rated and the latter standard rated. It is not difficult to multiply examples of that sort. There are plenty of “junk foods” which do not fall within any of the exceptions from zero-rating for food; there are also examples of healthy foods which are standard rated, for instance freshly squeezed orange juice available in supermarkets which falls within excepted item 4.

Indeed, extracted from the judgement (summarised by me, actual listing in appendix to judgement), we can see that Pringle-buyers are also likely to buy other zero-rated products such as KP Skips (no longer with potato ingredients), Doritos, Quaker Snack-a-Jacks, Jacobs Twiglets and Mini Cheddars (biscuits) or standard-rated products such as Monster Munch (no potatoes but content made from “swelling cereal” which attracts standard rate); McCoys (conventional potato crisps); KP Hula Hoops (because of potato flour); Walkers’ Quavers (potato flour); Walkers’ Potato Heads (with actual potato)."

I heart Daithi..

Comments

[accordingly.livejournal.com]

How weird. I was just informed of the Pringles-not-crisp thing in the pub last night and it was the first I'd ever heard of it!

[pennski.livejournal.com]

A crisp is a sliced fried potato. Anything else is a snack.

This is the gospel according to the place I work (produces 5 of the products mentioned above). And the above legislation is why we have to have umpteen different types of VAT rates available in our reporting system.

Ironically, 3 years ago I could have told you *exactly* how all of them were made. Now I find myself trying to remember whether Potato Heads are in fact crisps or not.

[hitchhiker.livejournal.com]

I insist on calling a single one a "pringle" :)

[hitchhiker.livejournal.com]

I used to love Quavers when I was a kid (indeed, given that crisps in general are appreciated more in ones youth, they might have been my favourite chip ever :)) Pringles are okay but I get tired of them fast.