
This week, we dive into the oddities of the VAT system.
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From jaffa cakes and gingerbread men, to fur skin coats and children's clothes, our VAT system and its byzantine rules seem, on the surface, to be a fun quirk of the UK tax system.
But dig deeper, and one finds economic distortions and inefficiencies due to the complex way the UK's third largest tax is levied.
Leading us through this maze of complexity are Helen Miller, IFS Deputy Director and tax expert, and Dan Neidle, a tax lawyer and founder of Tax Policy Associates.
Zooming In: discussion questions
Every week, we share a set of questions designed for A Level economics students to discuss, written by teacher Will Haines.
Related content
Host

Director
Paul has been the Director of the IFS since 2011. He is also currently visiting professor in the Department of Economics at University College London.
Participants


Founder, Tax Policy Associates
Podcast details
- DOI
- 10.1920/pd.ifs.2023.0019
- Publisher
- Institute for Fiscal Studies
Suggested citation
. (2023). Cake or biscuit? The UK's byzantine VAT system explained [Podcast] Institute for Fiscal Studies. Available at: https://ifs.org.uk/articles/cake-or-biscuit-uks-byzantine-vat-system-explained (accessed: 19 May 2025).
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