Asked by: Ian Sollom (Liberal Democrat - St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, pursuant to the Answer of 22 November 2024 to Question 14160 on Higher Education: VAT, whether she has made an assessment of the potential merits of enabling groups of universities to share VAT-exempt costs at contract level without creating a separate legal entity.
Answered by James Murray - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
The requirement for groups using the cost sharing exemption to create a separate legal entity is in place to ensure that use of the exemption aligns with normal VAT principles that apply to all taxpayers. The Government keeps all taxes under review as part of the policy making process, but there are currently no plans to change this.
Asked by: Ian Sollom (Liberal Democrat - St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether she has made an assessment of the potential merits of exempting VAT charges for universities that undertake shared services as a cross-sharing group.
Answered by James Murray - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
Universities can already benefit from exempting VAT charges for shared services within a cost sharing group providing certain conditions are met. This enables them to make efficiency savings by working together and sharing qualifying costs without incurring additional irrecoverable VAT.
Asked by: Ian Sollom (Liberal Democrat - St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if she will make the temporary duty easement for wines permanent from 1 February 2025.
Answered by James Murray - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
In August 2023 the Government introduced reforms to alcohol duty so that products are taxed in proportion to their alcoholic strength, not volume. The reforms aimed to modernise and simplify the system, to prioritise public health and incentivise consumption of lower strength products.
To help the wine industry adapt to the new duty system, the current, temporary duty easement was introduced as a transitional measure, which was intended to allow time for wine producers to adapt to calculating duty based on alcohol by volume.
The current temporary duty easement for wine is due to end on 31st January 2025.