Eu vat ruling urgent

[The Solar King]

Will you please support the various trade bodies involved by adding your signature to this round Robin letter to the Chancellor. This is the text of a message just received from the STA. We are one of several Trade bodies involved in a coordinated approach to tackling this:

[FONT=&quot]"Dear STA Member[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]You will recall that on 4[SUP]th[/SUP] June the European Court of Justice ruled against the UK’s reduced rate of VAT (5%) on the supply and installation of energy-saving materials for the domestic sector (reported in our 5[SUP]th[/SUP] June newsletter). The STA is part of a coalition of trade associations and other interested parties that are potentially affected by this ruling; the coalition met on Friday 26[SUP]th[/SUP] June to consider the position and what actions can be taken. The coalition is led by ACE and SEA, who met with HMRC yesterday to ascertain the government position. Dave Sowden (Chief Executive of the SEA) has written a note for their members and has kindly given permission for it to be forwarded to our members. Friday’s meeting agreed that, subject to the outcome of the HMRC meeting, a round robin letter should be written to the Chancellor, requesting primarily that the government not take any precipitate action to implement the ECJ’s ruling.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]The following are therefore attached to this message:[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
· [FONT=&quot]A round robin letter to Chancellor George Osborne, to be signed by your CEO or equivalent[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
· [FONT=&quot]A copy of Dave Sowden’s message today to SEA members, which includes earlier briefing of 5[SUP]th[/SUP] June and a PowerPoint presentation on the subject[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]The instructions for adding your company’s signature and logo to the letter are as follows:[/FONT]
· [FONT=&quot]It is VERY difficult to start amending the text unless there is a substantive key point missing, so please don’t ask for drafting changes unless that is the case[/FONT]
· [FONT=&quot]Letters of this nature should be kept at the most senior level possible – preferably CEO or equivalent[/FONT]
· [FONT=&quot]SEA/ACE intend to send the letter close of play on Thursday to allow it to be processed by the Ministerial Correspondence unit in time for it to make a difference (though they will send to civil servants as well) so it will only include organisations that have got back to them by 17:30 on Thursday 2 July.[/FONT]
· [FONT=&quot]If your organisation can lend its support, please send your approval to Pat Webster ([email protected]) with the following:[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]o your logo in jpeg form[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]o the full job title of your senior level signatory[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]o their signature in jpeg form (SEA undertakes to use them only for this letter, and destroy the source files once used unless you give us express permission otherwise).[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]You may get a similar request from other coalition members, so apologies in advance for any cross-postings. This message is going to our STA newsletter distribution list so apologies too that several people in your company may receive it, but I felt that the briefing would be of wide interest.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]You will see from the briefing that the position for solar is less clear than it is for some of the fabric related measures, due to the wording of the VAT directive. I can assure you that we will continue to work with the other coalition members to ensure that the interests of solar PV and thermal are fully represented going forward.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Best regards[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Mike [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
Mike Landy
Head of Policy"

Please see attached PDFs for more info.
Thanks in anticipation of your support.

 

[whinmoor]

Response following the Budget:

********************************

Dear Colleague

Further to the letter which you kindly co-signed to the Chancellor last week, the following text is included in the documentation accompanying today’s budget.

“The government will legislate to set a ceiling for the main rates of income tax, the standard and reduced rates of VAT, and employer and employee (Class 1) NICs rates, ensuring that they cannot rise above their current (2015-16) levels. The tax lock will also ensure that the NICs Upper Earnings Limit cannot rise above the income tax higher rate threshold; and will prevent the relevant statutory provisions being used to remove any items from the zero rate of VAT and reduced rate of VAT for the duration of this Parliament. (Summer Finance Bill 2015)”

On the face of it this seems to be good news because it implies that no items will be removed from reduced rates for the duration of this Parliament. Upon initial enquiries with officials, it seems there might still be some interpretation around this, particularly in respect of whether a Government can legislate with this strength following a court judgment, but these are early days.

We await further details, particularly the Finance Bill and will keep you posted.

Regards

Dave

Dave Sowden
Chief Executive

 

[Worcester]

The above from whinmoor has been re-confirmed by my accountants, it implies that the energy saving measure should be locked at the 5% rate of VAT.

Not sure why they've done it. As the legislators are the government, they can remove the locks any time they want, or could have decided not not to change anything whenever they wanted, so they only reason for putting a 'lock' on has to be a political move, UNLESS other legislation had devolved these powers down to the appropriate Secretaries of State - e.g degression in FiT/RHI etc.