Value Added Tax

HC Deb 23 January 1978 vol 942 cc419-20W

Mr. Tim Smith

asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer (1) what is the cost of the collection of value-added tax; and what saving would be made if the threshold were increased to (a) £10,000 (b) £100,000;

(2) what is the revenue raised by value added tax; and what revenue would be lost if the threshold were increased to (a) £10,000, and (b) £100,000.

Mr. Robert Sheldon

In 1976–77, net receipts of value added tax were £3,769.5 million, and it is estimated that the cost of administering the tax was about £80 million. It is not possible to estimate with any reasonable accuracy the saving on administrative costs from any particular

						£ million 1977 Survey Prices
			1977–78	1978–79	1979–80	1980–81	1981–82
England	…	…	63	74	77	64	60
Scotland*	…	…	87	102	94	89	89
Wales*	…	…	34	40	40	40	43
* (i) Includes expenditure by the Development Agencies on derelict land clearance and environmental schemes which are carried out in England by local authorities and included in programme 8; (ii) on investment in individual companies analogous to NED expenditure.

In addition, industry in the regions benefits substantially from other support programmes shown in Table 2.4.

Forecasts by English economic planning regions are not available, nor is a breakdown between England, Scotland and Wales of the forecast of regional development grant payments.

Details of expenditure in past years are available in the Annual Report on the Industry Act 1972, for those items covered by that Act, for the year ended 31st March 1977 which was published on 26th July 1977.

increase in the registration exemption limit because of uncertainty about the number of persons becoming eligible to deregister who would choose to do so. The likely loss of revenue if the limit were raised to £10,000 taxable turnover a year can, however, be reasonably estimated as being of the order of £15 million in a full year. On the other hand, raising the limit to £100,000 a year would cause such a change in the nature of the tax that, again, it is not possible to make a realistic estimate of the revenue loss.