To think the government should put VAT on cake

[72hoursinaande]

its a luxury to eat cake and would probably put more back into the coffers.
Slightly tongue in cheek but I thought mumsnet could use a different VAT debate.

I detest how flavours are fannied around with, there are now all kinds of malt loaf, what's wrong with malt loaf flavour, ditto hot cross buns, I accidently bought chocolate flavoured hot cross buns, I could have had all sorts of others. Similarly cheese, coming Christmas not doubt there'll be mincemeat flavoured Wensleydale etc., revolting!

Only decent ones though, not the horrible supermarket ones and Mr Ks shouldn't be allowed at all, like Class A stuff.

🤣🤣🤣

To be fair, I remember parents sending cake in on their kids birthday. The teacher would share it out. On those days, cake did make school seem better.

Yes, no problem for me!
Bloody cakes, chocolate and biscuits....
😕

Only on cake served in private schools.

Please add a sales tax to coffee and kebabs first.

They are already taxed and yet alas the DNHS continues to be shit, regardless.

I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but I'm afraid that if you personally eat more than £90,000 worth of cakes a year, then there will be implications.

God they extend the sugar tax we’ll end up with sweeteners in everything and nothing to buy except food that tastes like chemicals. I’d rather have sugar than sweeteners and I’m really pissed off the impact this stupid tax has had.

They can quadruple the tax on tobacco and alcohol. But leave cake alone.

If it was possible to tax cake, biscuits, chocolate, sweets, ice cream, fried foods, ready meals etc and use the money to make fresh, healthy whole foods more affordable then I would definitely be in favour of it.

Otherwise, no. Poorer people would be disproportionately affected as they can't easily afford healthy alternatives.

I dislike cakes.....yes its true.

I agree vat on cake.

And those very posh artisan Cake/coffee places.

Surely, we should be encouraged yo make do and mend! It is amazing how often I break eggs and have to make cake.
Home made for your own use shouldn't have vat!

No way, especially not carrot cake

The government should do more to ensure we can all eat healthy food cheaper. Not sure how, but nice fruit and veg has become ridiculously expensive.

Yes, VAT on cakes. If it's OK to tax private education, it's certainly OK to tax cake. Nobody needs cake. And if they do, they can make it VAT free from scratch.

I think I'd like vat on a sliding scale so if there was more than x% fat, y% sugar or z% sweetener then the cake is taxed.

It would improve health more than raise tax as I think manufacturers would tweak the recipes of everyday cakes to avoid vat (so a drizzle of icing instead of covering the top/adding icing but leaving off the chocolate shapes etc) and over time this would retrain people's palates.

I'd rather they didn't adulterate the recipes, and instead the product became more expensive, so that it became a less frequent treat.

Mostly they chose to adulterate the soft drink recipes and now it's much harder to find a simple sugar-containing fizzy pop. There's all sorts of random crap in them, and after a reaction to one can it's possible my OH is mildly allergic to stevia.

Good idea. Saying that I never eat cake. They shouldn't tax period items as that's essential. Cake, biscuits, private school isn't!

I totally agree- we need to start taxing high calorie foods & takeaways. It works in reducing alcohol & tobacco use & would work for obesity too. Zero rate all unprepared or minimally processed fruit & veg, loads of basic foods like bread, pasta & healthy ready made soup & low calorie ready meals.

Confectionery is already taxed at the full VAT rate.

I agree, but takeaways are already liable to VAT at 20% which doesn't stop most people buying them. So it may raise tax revenue, but probably won't help the obesity epidemic and NHS/care crisis.

Maybe an even higher rate of VAT on takeaways and restaurant/cafe food may start to have an impact?

Anyway, no govt would do it. Look at Covid where they actually reduced VAT on takeaways and eating out and set up the eat out to spread covid scheme, to help the catering/hospitality industry.

The reality is that they want people to buy crap food as the food/hospitality/catering industry would collapse if they didn't causing mass unemployment.

It is!
This was debated several years ago (1991)
They are cake for VAT purposes, thus exempt
Except @72hoursinaande is suggesting the untinkable!
And i don't even like cake! Unless it's a very dense fruit cake, preferable Christmas cake, no icing, no marzipan...

Cake should be taxed given the amount diabetes and obesity costs the health service. I would tax all upf (including those containing artificial sweeteners) and use the money to subsidise whole food.

I also think there should be pictures of fatty liver and diabetes related limb amputation on cakes (as is done for cigarettes).