As if the Christmas and New Year period wasn’t busy enough in the retail world, this year you have another job to add to your ‘to do’ list. A year ago the government announced a temporary reduction in the Standard rate of VAT from 17.5% to 15.0%, to be in place throughout 2009. There’s been a great deal of speculation during these last twelve months that when this temporary reduction ended the Standard rate might actually rise beyond the previous 17.5% figure – however it seems that those doing the speculating forgot one crucial factor, particularly as the year wore on: there’s going to have to be a general election by next June at the latest, and it’s now much more likely that the expected hike in VAT rates will be left until after that event.
Hence according to Revenue& Customs the restoration of the 17.5% rate will take place from midnight on 31st December as originally announced…
The full article will be available from the 1st of December in the Forecourt Trader and online @ www.ekwilliams.co.uk.
