Wednesday, February 04, 2009

Piece of cake

I've said it once and I'll say it again - we must destroy the VAT system! It is illogical, over complicated and massively time consuming for no practical purposes what so ever. I have spent needless hours of my life wrestling with this thrice damned method of taxation and still see no real logic to the thing.

Even Marks and Sparks with its enormous legal and accountancy teams has problems - but at last it has won a thirteen year struggle to have its tea cake (pictured) reclassified from a biscuit - a ruling which sees HM revenue having to repay £ 13 million pounds to the company.

It's so bloody arbitrary. Why is a jaffa cake exempt from VAT and yet a piece of short bread is not? Why are we not taxing the wealth? Surely it is the profits made from these goods that's the important thing, not how effing spongy they are!

Why are biscuit eaters unfairly persecuted over those who munch cake products? Is progressive taxation really the unrealistic alternative to this foolishness?

If I think of all the tea cakes I've bought down the years and the 17.5% VAT I've had to unjustly pay on them... I might just about be able to afford one more packet - they aren't my thing really.