Talk:Value-added tax in the United Kingdom

The criticism section
"The zero rating of food and allowing businesses to reclaim input VAT means that the government in effect subsidises the food industry.[2]". How is this in affect the government subsidising the food industry? VAT is in affect an immoral tax where governments take a large slice of money on goods and services in which they take no direct part in producing. And yes, no wonder it was dreamt up by the French. It's easy and lazy money for governments. 86.162.140.99 (talk) 13:09, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
 * I agree, I say we throw all the barrels of tea in the harbour right now, and declare independence from London immediately. How on Earth can not paying VAT be a considered a food subsidy, when VAT is put on top of the price of goods. This is double talk, and completely wrong. The linked reference/citation says "Zero-rated VAT applies in the UK on most food (with the paradoxical exception of snacks), medicines, books and some forms of transport. Because providers can claim back VAT on what it costs to produce such items, the government effectively offers subsidies to these industries." - this so-called "subsidy", the VAT the food industry can claim back, is the VAT that is ADDED to the cost of goods and services bought in order to run their businesses. All businesses in the UK can do the same, therefore it is not a subsidy any more than it could be claimed that all industries who claim back VAT are subsidised. I vote for removal since the citation itself is equally POV, and not actually true unless we already living in the World of George Orwell's 1984.--62.249.233.80 (talk) 18:59, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
 * There appears to be an even bigger problem, here. That is all negative criticism. Is there no one to plea for the benefits, let's say: It taxes consumption, rather than income. It balances necessary items against luxury goods (level) ...?
 * The criticism is currently negative only and thus incomplete to the point, where it distorts the perception of readers. Yotwen (talk) 05:52, 1 September 2017 (UTC)
 * If you can find WP:RS which state that VAT is a good thing please add it yourself.--Obi2canibe (talk) 17:26, 3 September 2017 (UTC)

Capitalisation
The article title should be "Value added tax (United Kingdom)"; "value added tax" is not a proper name. Upper case is not needed except in "Value Added Tax Act 1994", which is a proper name. This would bring it in line with United Kingdom corporation tax and other articles on taxation. Is there a problem with that? Chris the speller  yack  03:02, 17 September 2015 (UTC)


 * I'm not objecting to using lower cases but would point out that other sales taxes articles are capitalised (e.g. Goods and Services Tax (Australia), Goods and Services Tax (Canada), Goods and Services Tax (Hong Kong), Goods and Services Tax (Malaysia), Goods and Services Tax (New Zealand), Goods and Services Tax (Singapore)). We need a consistent approach across all related articles.-- obi2canibe talk contr 12:54, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

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Out of scope vs other "zero" rates
It's proving hard to get a definitive position on the following, but as far as I can make out, international sales (to outside the EU) should be Zero-Rated, and not Out-of-Scope'd as suggested by the article. See, for example: here and here. I'm also not sure it's correct to say that O should be used for purchases from non-registered suppliers. The issue is exactly how should such purchases be handled in box 7 of the VAT-100 return and again, it's not easy to get a definitive answer on that. I'm not going to change either because I'm still looking into both for my own purposes. I'll report back once (if) I can get a firm answer, but I'd be interested in any opinions in the meantime. Thomask0 (talk) 21:08, 29 August 2017 (UTC)