Having a discussion at work....

LSainsbury · Post by **LSainsbury** » Thu May 29, 2003 10:10 pm

Jaffa Cakes: Cake or Biscuit?

CB · Post by CB » Thu May 29, 2003 10:11 pm

I thought the clue was in the name?

LSainsbury · Post by **LSainsbury** » Thu May 29, 2003 10:18 pm

Well - yes - there is that....but some supermarkets place them in the biscuit section...hence the discussion (at work)....

Duncan · Post by **Duncan** » Thu May 29, 2003 11:36 pm

Not as simple as it seems. there was actually a lot of money spent by the manufacurers and Inland Revenue taking this issue to court. As far as I remember It went like this....

sweets attract VAT

Food does not attract VAT

Chocolate busuits are counted a sweets so are VATted

Cakes are food so not VATable

Revenue say Jaffer cakes are chocy Bickies therefor please can we have lots of money please.

Manufacurer....no you can't they're food

Judge..... asks Mr revenue if the Jaffer cake was size of diner plate would you call it a cake or buiscuit

Mr revenue ..... um ah well.... I suppose... I would call it a cake

Judge... IT'S A CAKES ...and size doesn't matter

Jaffer cakes are cakes.

Mr_AWOL · Post by **Mr_AWOL** » Fri May 30, 2003 12:45 am

Biscuit = piece of usu. unleavened cake or bread of various materials, usually crisp, dry, hard and of small flat thin shape.

Cake = Sweet usu. unleavened bread with other ingredients besides flour, e.g. currants, spice, eggs, sugar; quantity of this baked in thick disc or ornamental shape.

Therefore, a biscuit is sometimes a kind of cake, but a cake is not always a biscuit! Furthermore, a jaffa cake is actually a biscuit!

Must confess i havent read the jaffa VAT case, so can't comment there, but remmeber something about 'connies cones' (not a porn film) having the same problem. Obviously laws are all upheld by interpretation and i would say that the oxford english is a better source of definition than case law on a VAT issue?

Apart from all this - there are only 3 votes so far so it seems that no-one cares either way whether they are biscuits, cakes or other!

Mr_AWOL · Post by **Mr_AWOL** » Fri May 30, 2003 12:55 am

Also, if jaffa's were cakes then why would they do the cake bars?

Derek · Post by **Derek** » Fri May 30, 2003 3:14 am

keep it simple - jaffa cakes are cakes for VAT purposes

as duncan (can always be relied upon) said mcvities took action on this when the chancellor wanted to make them VATable as in biscuits.

a similar strange one is crisps are VATable but snacks aren't. this means that your average packet of crisps attract VAT but KP Skips and Walkers Doritos etc.. are zero VAT rated.

Mr_AWOL · Post by **Mr_AWOL** » Fri May 30, 2003 11:34 pm

Jaffa cakes may well be cakes for VAT purposes, but they may be lots of different things for various different purposes - surely all that matters is whether or not they are cakes or biscuits by definition of the english language, not their VAT treatment!

LSainsbury · Post by **LSainsbury** » Sat May 31, 2003 12:09 am

See - told you it won't be simple!

Blondie. · Post by **Blondie.** » Sat May 31, 2003 1:11 am

Didn't it all come down to whether they went soft (like a biscuit) or hard (like cake) when stale?

I didn't know there were so many tax experts in here!

Derek · Post by **Derek** » Sat May 31, 2003 2:17 am

i'm not a tax expert - just retail orientated

Mr_AWOL · Post by **Mr_AWOL** » Sat May 31, 2003 9:40 am

Im not a tax expert, but then again a lot of tax experts know nothing about VAT as it is more of an accounting issue. Then again i only have reasonable knowledge of VAT too, but so have VAT inspectors. (I once had one tell me he thought a partial exemption calculation i had done for a doctor client was wrong, but he was going to need to go back to the office to tell me why! Turned out i was right after all)!