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How to fix VAT

ICAEW explores the challenges and opportunities offered in reimagining VAT and its application. Read about the history of VAT, the lessons that can be learned from outside the UK and the potential of digitalisation.

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What is VAT?
Value added tax is a vital tool for raising revenue to fund education, healthcare and more. We explain how it works and how it could be improved.
Close up photograph of historic calculator, with buttons stating 'payments' 'refunds' 'deposites'
Article

A brief history of VAT in Europe and the UK

  • 18 Sep 2024
  • ICAEW Insights
Hatched as a concept at the end of the First World War and brought into use in the wake of the Second, VAT was designed to be simple and politically neutral.
Read now
Podcast

How to fix VAT

  • 29 Oct 2024
  • ICAEW
In this episode we’ll be talking about the problems with VAT and why ICAEW is launching a new campaign, How to Fix VAT.
Listen now
two colleagues employees hands meeting sitting at a table desk office typing on a laptop writing pen looking at paperwork charts graphs
Article

Why previous efforts to simplify VAT have failed

  • 19 Nov 2024
  • ICAEW Insights
Fifty years on from its introduction, VAT is a complex tax that taxpayers struggle to understand. Despite attempts at simplification, including by the Office of Tax Simplification itself, VAT remains notoriously complicated. Experts explain why this is the case.
Read now
Photograph of two Cornish pasties on paper and wooden board.
Graphical of top of white sheet of paper on a blue background. On the paper you can see top of column graph, red column comes all the way off the page as a role of tape.
Article The complicated and costly world of VAT
  • 23 Oct 2024
  • ICAEW Insights
Everyone knows UK VAT is complicated and, for taxable persons, costly to comply with. But why is the tax so complex, and why does it often impose onerous compliance costs?
Graphic showing small red sphere and a large blue sphere on a seesaw. The red ball on the right-hand side weighs more than the larger blue ball on the left.
Article Progressive VAT: is now the time?
  • Article
  • 02 Oct 2024
  • ICAEW Insights
Under a progressive tax system, wealthier individuals pay tax at a higher rate than those on lower incomes. Angela Bedi considers the merits of a progressive VAT, and how it could be achieved.
Graphical image - top half sky blue, bottom half sunshine orange. Top half has six small wooden blocks each with a red arrow pointing upwards. Bottom half has six blocks with sky blue arrows pointing down.
Article The ups and downs of the VAT registration threshold
  • 30 Sep 2024
  • ICAEW Insights
The VAT registration threshold increased to £90,000 in April 2024, but should it be higher? Or would the UK benefit from a lower threshold?

Bloomsbury Accounting and Tax Service

Eligible firms have free access to Bloomsbury Professional's comprehensive online library, comprising titles from some of the country's leading tax subject matter experts and covering VAT. Find out who is eligible and how you can access the Accounting and Tax Service.

See VAT ebooks