§ Mrs. Jegerasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will now take steps to implement the recommendation of the Goodman committee on charity law and voluntary organisations that all charities should be able to reclaim VAT in excess of £25 on essential expenses.
§ Mr. Robert SheldonThe many recommendations of the Goodman committee are still being considered, but it would be difficult to justify implementing this particular recommendation which would have repercussions in other fields, be costly to administer and contrary to the underlying principle of VAT that all persons, whether or not they are registered for the tax, should bear tax on purchases made for their non-business activities. Charities which are registered422W for the tax are able to recover all VAT paid on purchases made for their business activities.
§ Mrs. Jegerasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer how much VAT was collected in the last financial year from registered charities.
§ Mr. Robert SheldonI am afraid that separate information for charities is not available, but in 1977–78 net receipts ot VAT from welfare and charitable services, which are classified together for VAT, were about £1.1 million.