Half Moon...

To celebrate the rise in VAT (Value Added Tax) here in the UK, I thought I'd relay a wee snippet I read the other day regarding our goods tax system.

It's probably well known knowledge now, but do you know the difference between a biscuit and a cake? It's all to do with the way they are made and subsequently go stale. With cakes, moisture is added to the mixed ingredients to get the final product whereas with biscuits, moisture is taken away from the mixed ingredients to get the final product. Therefore, cakes go stale by losing their moisture, drying up and going hard whilst biscuits again do the opposite and gain moisture, becoming soft.

There are some odd exemptions or inclusions regarding whether food is taxed by VAT. In general, bakery products such as bread, biscuits and cakes are exempt from VAT but biscuits that are wholly or partly covered in chocolate have to have the tax added.

Jaffa cakes are actually exempt from VAT thanks to a famous court ruling when HM customs and revenue tried to argue that they are chocolate covered biscuits but the ruling went in favour of manufacturers McVitie who claimed rightly so that they are actually small cakes.

Apparently McVities produced an extra large Jaffa cake in court to prove the point.

Droooooolll...