§ Mr. Hirstasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will estimate the cost to Her Majesty's Customs and Excise of relaxing the rules for value added tax bad debt relief, in cases where a formal judgment of insolvency against a defaulting debtor was not, or could not, be obtained.
§ Mr. HayhoePrecise figures of the possible cost to the Exchequer of extending VAT relief to all bad debts are not available, but Customs estimate the cost at between £150 million and £200 million a year.
§ Mr. Hirstasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he has any plans to review the rules on value added tax bad debt relief.
§ Mr. HayhoeIn their introduction to the White Paper on a revised framework for insolvency law, the Government have stated that they plan to bring forward an Insolvency Bill at the earliest practicable opportunity. I shall be asking Customs to look at the VAT bad debt relief arrangements in the light of the proposals contained in that Bill.