Government to put vat on childrens clothes

[Whyhaveibeencutoutofmamsnot]

Have heard from someone who works in the public sector that there is to be vat added to children's clothes and shoes.
Also there will be charges on food waste unless it is for legitimate reasons ie fruit and vegetable peelings or meat and fish bones.

How would they monitor the food waste? Sounds more expensive to manage than they'd make in levies?
Cant imagine VAT on children's clothes happening tbh

Does the "someone" work in Tufton Street?

How often will the fridge inspector be coming round to check the contents of my fridge?

They'd be utter shits if they did this. I guess we'll find out on Wednesday. No point worrying or guessing at this point.

And food waste? I wonder if my insinkerator is going to snitch on me? 🤣

Food waste is a huge issue but there have been loads of threads on here about people who turn their nose up at leftovers and won't use something a second over its best before date. Also I can't see how fining would work.

Well, the new duties relating to food waste are , I think, the result of legislation such as th e Environment Act 2021, passed by the previous govt and being implemented gradually. So no Labour-bashing material to be had there. Regarding VAT on kids clothes, I think we need more than "i have heard from someone who works in the public sector" before we work up a froth about that.

(And would it be a bad thing, provided that some distinction between essential and discretionary child clothing purchases could be made? Fast fashion is one of the hugest environmentally damaging consumer trends. Would be good to damp it down.)

Food waste makes sense... children's clothing does not. Firstly, children's education and now clothing too!?! What on earth is this government thinking?

Would you like to explain your username, OP? It seems to imply that you may have been banned in the past?

I heard from someone who works in Government there will be a new tax on wasting space on forums too.

They aren’t, the post is entirely made up

You heard from someone who works in the public sector?

I think you need to do better than that for your source.

Don't be daft they'll just give us all rations and anything bought over it will incur fines

Our council made noises about this some time ago, but nothing has come of it yet as far as I’m aware.
The idea was to weigh the bins as they were emptied I believe. It meant new bins with chips in them.
Lots of social media speculation about neighbours filling other peoples bins up and how we’d have to padlock them😀

I've heard from someone in the public sector that this post is a pile of Labour-bashing bollocks. Pass it on.

Goady made up bollocks

Unless they're only referring to companies and corporate environments, monitoring food waste could be extremely Big Brother-like.

Even if it were in, say a cafe, the cafe owner could just take home the leftovers and now-unsellable food 'for personal use' and then sling it straight in her own bin at home.

The massive companies who are responsible for the most food waste already have the government in their pockets and can get away with whatever they like, so I doubt they'd try to go after them. Also, government-owned/run establishments are big offenders!

Surely, if it's not just a pretext for making us pay more, they'd be better actually making ALL councils provide food waste collection facilities and linking up with farms to use it more sustainably for animal feed or similar.

How can they tax food waste? My food waste goes in a large communal dumpster style bin because I live in a block of flats. How are they going to know what's mine or from Flat number 20?
Basic recycling (ie paper, cans, plastic bottles) is pretty much impossible with communal bins - they need to sort that before doing anything else.

Try harder 0/10

Does it really matter ? It’s not a thread about anything goady? (Unless OP suddenly starts telling us that sea serpents are going to make a profit from vat on kids clothes which they’ll use to fund their world takeover project)

I think we should have VAT on basically everything. That's how the Nordic countries do it, more or less - flat high rate of VAT on pretty much everything, and then there is more money to fund a better public sector, including more generous benefits for those who need them.

If you want to "help poor people," then the Nordic way (VAT on everything, then more generous benefits) makes more sense than "Oh, let's take VAT off kids' clothes in case poor people struggle."

I know that these VAT exemptions seem "kind" in an emotional kind of way, because we all picture a scene of "a poor person buying kids' clothes and struggling" in our minds when we think about this. But rich people buy loads more kids' clothes than poor people (who "make do," use handmedowns, get second hand clothing as much as possible), so most of the benefits of no-VAT-on-kids-clothes goes to well-off people.

Putting the VAT on kids' clothes (and all the other things) and then having more generous benefits is a much, much more efficient and effective way of helping those on low-incomes.

In addition, the timewasting, complication and ridiculous workarounds which are created by the UK's complex and illogical mess of VAT exemptions is economically inefficient and harms growth and productivity. Businesses waste time and energy fighting their way through all the red tape and silly rules instead of on other activities that they should be focusing on.

Is "I heard [insert wildly unlikely tax here]" the modern equivalent of "I was told by a stranger I met to avoid London next week"?

You've heard about the sea serpents as well?
Honestly, I am starting to despair about this government!

Maybe we'll all have to take the whole family with us to the supermarket each week, where they'll weigh us all, weigh the food we buy, do some calculations and tax us based on any 'discrepancies' - but I guess they'd then have to square the circle by weighing our bathroom 'output' as well to factor in to the calculation, so who knows...?!?!

How could you possibly judge food waste ?

Just to try and clarify what might be the reality behind the food waste element of the OP's deliberately vague agitprop ... https://www.specialityfoodmagazine.com/news/new-food-waste-law-england-march-2025#:~:text=The%20new%20food%20waste%20law,expected%20to%20arrange%20separate%20collections.