VAT Children's clothing

miss_miggins

My son who is 12 is a big lad, size 10 shoes and wears small adult clothing. As children's clothes are VAT exempt is there any way I can avoid or claim back VAT on clothes I buy for him?

JasonLVC

Alas no.

The VAT legislation is very specific regarding childrens clothing and HMRC publish very specific sizes/dimensions at which point they consider clothes to be no logner 'children sized'.

http://customs.hmrc.gov.uk/channelsPortalWebApp/channelsPortalWebApp.portal?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=pageVAT_ShowContent&id=HMCE_CL_000138&propertyType=document#P313_13034

Section 4.3 covers sizes for clothing and section 4.3 for shoes. The link to guidance is meant for retailers who are selling such goods and so if the retailier thinks they have a case to zero rate the sale then it is they who must get permission from HMRC. You'll not be able to get the clothing/shoes zero rated yourself or reclaim it from HMRC.

The legislation specifically requires the product to be "designed solely for children" and also "held out for sale only to children" and so you'll fall down on this last bit becuase if the shoes are generally just being sold on the rack for anyone who is sie 10 then they cannot be held out only for to sale children.

Your only hope is to do some extensive 'googling' as there may be a retailer out there who specifically sellsd childrens clothing/shoes which are only sold to children, despite being 'bigger' sizes.

moneypooh

Oh, one of my biggest bug bears in the system. No VAT on childrens clothes until about 12yrs when most of our children start to need larger clothes. Both my children are ideal weight and height but were not able to shop in childrens shops, except for school uniform.

Some retailers do go up to larger sizes but little in store most online. Next is like this the shops usually go up to 2 but you can get up to 16 online. New look do generation 9-15 clothing.

Enterprise_1701C

Of course the other end of this is that I take size 5 shoes which, in many places. is classed as a children's size, so I get my shoes cheaper!

Swings and roundabouts I know, and it obviously does not help you, but it is just the way it works.

I suggest taking him to somewhere like Primark.

lil_me

My 9 year old boy is over 5ft tall and wears size 7.5 shoes, totally disgusted that the system is based on size not the fact it's for a child

Not my favourite place in the world but BHS does longer length trousers (school ones) for boys and girls which are very generous in size. Unfortunately shoes it's a case of much more for the same shoes