Tuesday November 24, 2009
A social enterprise in Surrey is preparing to leave the NHS and has assured local people it is ready to pay the large VAT bill arising from its breakaway.
Your Healthcare Kingston is due to break away from the NHS to manage 500 community nurses and £21 million in contracts, but it will also face a VAT bill of around £300,000 per year, the Surrey Comet has reported.
However, the organisation told the newspaper that it was prepared for the VAT bill, which will be due because social enterprises are not eligible for VAT refunds.
"We’ve always factored VAT into our five year financial modelling and business plan, which has shown that Your Healthcare will be a financially viable organisation," said Siobhan Clarke, managing director of Your Healthcare.
A social enterprise is a business that provides a service to the local community and reinvests any profits it makes back into those services.
Wednesday May 6, 2009
The European Union (EU) has confirmed its adoption of a legal text which will allow Malta to continue to offer a zero per cent VAT rate on food.
At a meeting in Brussels yesterday, the Economic and Financial Affairs Council revealed that the legislation follows on from an agreement made around two months ago.
Under the plans, pharmaceuticals sold in the country are also set to receive a zero per cent rate.
EU finance minister Tonio Fenech welcome the move to cut VAT on such products in Malta.
He added that the decision would mean that consumers will not face any increases in the price of items that are often essential to the public.
It was also recently confirmed that the European Union is cutting VAT rates on some labour-intensive services such as restaurants and clothing retailers to around five per cent.
Wednesday April 29, 2009
It has been revealed that the government of Malta is charging a VAT rate on medical vaccines, despite being given previous exemption.
The five per cent VAT rate is charged as vaccines are classed differently to other medicines, reports Malta Today.
Malta was granted a VAT exemption on medicine before its acceptance into the European Union, however vaccines go under a different classification, meaning they are subject to a five per cent VAT rate, according to the government.
A spokesperson for the finance ministry told the newspaper: "The imposition of VAT on vaccines results from pre-accession negotiations when Malta was requested to align itself with similar exemptions granted to other member states."
The newspaper contacted the European Commission and was told that Malta has "a derogation to apply zero rates on pharmaceuticals".
It was recently claimed the millions of euros have been lost over a period of years due to fraudulent actions by VAT department staff in Malta, the Times of Malta reported.
Wednesday April 15, 2009
A leading healthy drinks maker has launched a new tribunal application claiming its products should be exempt from VAT charges.
Innocent, which produces a range of smoothies, has hired PricewaterhouseCoopers to act on its behalf in its fight with HM Revenue and Customs.
Under current UK tax rules, VAT is not paid on "essential" food and drinks, but must pay VAT of 17.5 per cent of "luxury" items, which included fruit juices and smoothies.
Richard Reed, co-founder of Innocent, told the Telegraph it was "absurd" that the firm’s products contain two full portions and are still subject to full taxation.
"Fruit isn’t taxed as long as it’s whole. Just because we crush it and put it in a bottle, we are subject to full VAT. We think we can argue that Innocent smoothies should be a food rather than a beverage under the Revenue’s definitions," he added.
Innocent recently sold a stake of up to 20 per cent of the firm to Coca-Cola for £30 million.
