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How to fix VAT

ICAEW explores the challenges and opportunities offered in reimagining VAT and its application. Read about the history of VAT, the lessons that can be learned from outside the UK and the potential of digitalisation.

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Close up photograph of historic calculator, with buttons stating 'payments' 'refunds' 'deposites'
Article

A brief history of VAT in Europe and the UK

  • 18 Sep 2024
  • ICAEW Insights
Hatched as a concept at the end of the First World War and brought into use in the wake of the Second, VAT was designed to be simple and politically neutral.
Read now
Podcast

How to fix VAT

  • 29 Oct 2024
  • ICAEW
In this episode we’ll be talking about the problems with VAT and why ICAEW is launching a new campaign, How to Fix VAT.
Listen now
two colleagues employees hands meeting sitting at a table desk office typing on a laptop writing pen looking at paperwork charts graphs
Article

Why previous efforts to simplify VAT have failed

  • 19 Nov 2024
  • ICAEW Insights
Fifty years on from its introduction, VAT is a complex tax that taxpayers struggle to understand. Despite attempts at simplification, including by the Office of Tax Simplification itself, VAT remains notoriously complicated. Experts explain why this is the case.
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Photograph of two Cornish pasties on paper and wooden board.
Photograph of Sydney Harbour at sunset with the opera house in the centre of the image.
Lessons on VAT from New Zealand and Australia

Lessons on VAT from New Zealand and Australia

  • Article
  • 27 Nov 2024
  • ICAEW Insights
For UK tax policy stakeholders, fascinating case studies of how other countries are approaching VAT can be found on the other side of the world.
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Bloomsbury Accounting and Tax Service

Eligible firms have free access to Bloomsbury Professional's comprehensive online library, comprising titles from some of the country's leading tax subject matter experts and covering VAT. Find out who is eligible and how you can access the Accounting and Tax Service.

See VAT ebooks