Generali's 12 days of Christmas Quiz.

Generali

I thought it might be fun to set a Christmas quiz. Answers in the New Year. It might end early if I get bored but never mind. Try not to use Google but if you do then I am reliably informed Santa will not be visiting you next year.

1. Which of the following are 'zero rated' or exempted for the purposes of VAT?
a. Children's car seats
b. Tampons
c. Chocolate body paint
d. Pornographic magazines
e. Gambling
f. Crisps
g. Frozen Chips
h. New Helicopters
i. New Cars

John_Pierpoint

Generali wrote: »

I thought it might be fun to set a Christmas quiz. Answers in the New Year. It might end early if I get bored but never mind. Try not to use Google but if you do then I am reliably informed Santa will not be visiting you next year.

1. Which of the following are 'zero rated' or exempted for the purposes of VAT?
a. Children's car seats
b. Tampons
c. Chocolate body paint
d. Pornographic magazines
e. Gambling
f. Crisps
g. Frozen Chips
h. New Helicopters
i. New Cars

OK I accept the challenge:
First we all have to agree that UK tax has no logic and is a mish mash of lobbying and short term political expediency; it is now so complex that nobody understands it, least of all the overworked HMRC call centre staff.
As a nation the majority of the proletariat are subject to the mushroom theory of management, as tax absorbs an ever increasing percentage of our national weath. The only objective is to pluck the goose by extracting the maximum number of feathers with the minimum of squawking.

Off the top of my head, and without the curse of Google, here is my attempt to identify the exempt (no tax charged) and zero rated (subsidised - all the other people's tax refunded to the lucky recipient - like the lottery).

TAX PAYABLE
YES. a. Children's car seats (unlike safety boots - where a boot is defined as a shoe covering the ankle)
NO... b. Tampons (because the fair sex made such a fuss - I'll have to grow a beard)
YES.. c. Chocolate body paint (addictive sin tax)
NO... d. Pornographic magazines (educational like newspapers and books)
NO.... e. Gambling (Financial transaction - no Tobin tax here!)
YES... f. Crisps (luxury food - "Pringles" unlike "Jaffa" cakes fought and lost?)
YES... g. Frozen Chips (The agricultural land owners need the subsidy)
NO..... h. New Helicopters (Why do I feel this might be the real Joker in the pack?)
YES.....i. New Cars (Nasty, noisy, socially divisive, consumers of natural resources and the 20th century's largest mass murderer of pedestrians, schoolchildren and badgers?)

Logically I should have got 50% right just by tossing a coin - so next time I will use the coin.

I did check with google to confirm that those speaking "strine", pronounce VAT as GST and I expect a similar list of weird and wonderful rules from down under - come to think of it, there was an example of gobledy gook on the radio recently, from the GST manual, trying to define "tax point".

As a result of my GST research, here is your Christmas day present - to be read on the beach.
http://www.treasury.gov.au/documents/1156/PDF/01_Brief_History.pdf

Generali

I've got all questions sorted so will post one-by-one.

Good guesses JP. Not very accurate but good never the less.

michaels

In the spirit of having much to much to do before christmas to look anything up I am going to guess c,d,e and g - do we get marked as each day passes or are the answers only revealled at the end?

ETA: Helicopters (and airships) - why?!

gallygirl

Generali wrote: »

I thought it might be fun to set a Christmas quiz. Answers in the New Year. It might end early if I get bored but never mind. Try not to use Google but if you do then I am reliably informed Santa will not be visiting you next year.

1. Which of the following are 'zero rated' or exempted for the purposes of VAT?
a. Children's car seats
b. Tampons
c. Chocolate body paint YES
d. Pornographic magazines YES
e. Gambling YES
f. Crisps
g. Frozen Chips YES
h. New Helicopters YES
i. New Cars

Am guessing, without looking at any other posts

vivatifosi

Generali wrote: »

I thought it might be fun to set a Christmas quiz. Answers in the New Year. It might end early if I get bored but never mind. Try not to use Google but if you do then I am reliably informed Santa will not be visiting you next year.

1. Which of the following are 'zero rated' or exempted for the purposes of VAT?
a. Children's car seats probably not, I'm sure that they are not that sensible
b. Tampons VAT not removed in total, though I think they have managed to reduce VAT to the lower threshold.
c. Chocolate body paint AFAIK all chocolate products are VAT rated
d. Pornographic magazines magazines are zero rated. It also used to be the case that under the law you could buy pornographic magazines on a Sunday, but not bibles.
e. Gambling IIRC gambling is zero rated
f. Crisps crisps are zero rated, but other snacks aren't.
g. Frozen Chips frozen chips are also zero rated
h. New Helicopters I'm going to guess no on this one, probably because the bloke who made up these rules had one. It's definitely a bloke or tampons wouldn't have VAT.
i. New Cars mmmm.... Not sure. I remember there's some difference between cars and vans in terms of reclaiming VAT, or perhaps one has it on and the other doesn't. So I'm going to guess yes.

Also, orange juice is VAT rated, which I think is ridiculous. I have not googled (which is probably why half my answers will be proven to be wrong).

Merry Christmas Gen, particularly as your celebrations will start before ours I want to make sure I'm in time getting that one in!

Generali

I'll give the answers at the end of all the questions.

There are some really weird ones with VAT. For example, dried fruit for sale as a snack or for baking is zero rated whereas dried fruit sold as a snack only is VATable. Flavoured milk is zero rated whereas flavouring for milk is VATable (unless it's cocoa which, of course, is zero rated).

ILW

Could this all be because it is a daft European idea dictated by Brussels?

Generali

ILW wrote: »

Could this all be because it is a daft European idea dictated by Brussels?

Nope. This one is all British or at least mostly. I think the only bit from Brussels is that you can't use zero rating as a form of protectionism.

chewmylegoff

Generali wrote: »

Which of the following are 'zero rated' or exempted for the purposes of VAT?
a. Children's car seats 20%
b. Tampons 5%
c. Chocolate body paint 0%
d. Pornographic magazines 0%
e. Gambling OUTSIDE SCOPE
f. Crisps 20%
g. Frozen Chips 0% (assuming they are uncooked)
h. New Helicopters 20%
i. New Cars 20%

There's my attempt although I dunno about helicopters, I have a suspicion they may be subject to a helicopter tax instead. I expect most are purchased through a company and the vat reclaimed if vat is charged.

chewmylegoff

vivatifosi wrote: »

Also, orange juice is VAT rated, which I think is ridiculous. I have not googled (which is probably why half my answers will be proven to be wrong).

Merry Christmas Gen, particularly as your celebrations will start before ours I want to make sure I'm in time getting that one in!

Cars and vans are both standard rated, but companies can only reclaim the vat on vans, as far as I remember.