On Monday, the government made a U-turn on its budgetary decision to add VAT to pasties and pies, because the move had been proven unpopular with the public, a high-profile high street baker and I guess more importantly for the government, a well established tabloid newspaper.
You may have read our original article a couple of weeks back where we informed you of the government’s intension to add 20% VAT to all powdered energy and recovery drink mixes? If not, click on the link below (it’s a brief article):
https://www.torqfitness.co.uk/news/vat-energy-products
Our argument against the introduction of this tax is essentially that powdered energy and recovery drink mixes are niche products, produced by smaller businesses (like ours) whose customer focus is geared towards the serious sports enthusiast. These customers generally have a very positive attitude to life, they are healthier than the average person, they take less sick days at work, are more productive when they are at work than their sedentary counterparts and most importantly, they put fewer demands on the National Health Service.
This U-turn by the government on ‘Pasty Tax’ in our opinion sets a precedence. We believe that it’s OK for the government to make mistakes, as long as they address them and we don’t think there’s any disgrace in their U-turn on pasty tax at all. However, we do feel that they now have no choice now but to U-turn on ‘Sports Nutrition Tax’.
Why? Well, if the reasons outlined above (and in the previous article) aren’t good enough, with the plethora of validated research out there linking saturated fat to heart disease, cancer and various other nasty ailments, how can the government possibly justify allowing a lard-filled pasty to escape VAT treatment whilst pressing on to tax the healthy population?
In summary, we feel that these are the main reasons why the government should U-turn on ‘Sports Nutrition Tax’:
1) The government would be taxing positive, hard working and committed healthy individuals who represent far less of a strain on the National Health Service than the average pasty-eating sedentary person.
2) The tax is going to impact small niche businesses and ultimately won’t provide a huge amount of revenue for the government anyway. The decision is playing into the hands of the large multi-national companies who produce brightly coloured ‘ready to drinks’ for supermarkets, because these products in most cases already attract VAT. These ‘ready to drink’ products are aimed at the mass market for ‘drinking pleasure’, not specifically the performance/health orientated individuals.
3) If the decision to tax a saturated fat-filled pasty was the wrong one, it stands to reason that the decision to tax niche sports nutrition products MUST also be the wrong, otherwise the message from the government would clearly be that the nation’s health is of no interest to them. Surely this can’t be the case?
We feel that this is a moral issue and if you feel strongly about this subject and use our products, please do what you can to help. The e-petition link below literally takes seconds to sign, so please click-through and register at the very least. We are lobbying our local MP, so if you have the time, please do the same or similar.
Many thanks for your attention. We’re a passionate niche business whose intension has always been to service our customers with extremely high quality products at the best possible prices. A 20% rise in these prices isn’t going to be fair on anyone involved with TORQ.
