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Cake or death? Er, biscuit?
Oct. 12th, 2005 11:44 pmAnd the British make fun of our legal system... From the Wikipedia entry on Jaffa cake:
"Under UK law, no VAT is charged on biscuits and cakes - they are 'zero rated'. (Note that in British English, a 'biscuit' is roughly equivalent to a US 'cookie' or 'cracker'). Chocolate covered biscuits, however, are classed as luxury items and are subject to VAT at 17.5%. McVitie's classed its Jaffa Cakes as cakes, but in 1991 this was challenged in court. This may have been because their Jaffa Cakes are about the same size and shape as some types of biscuit. The question which had to be answered was what criteria should be used to class something as a cake or biscuit. McVitie's defended the classification of Jaffa Cakes as a cake by producing a giant jaffa cake to illustrate that their jaffa cakes were simply mini cakes. They also argued that the distinction between cakes and biscuits is simply that cakes go hard when stale, whereas biscuits go soft. It was demonstrated that Jaffa Cakes become hard when stale and McVitie's won the case."
"Under UK law, no VAT is charged on biscuits and cakes - they are 'zero rated'. (Note that in British English, a 'biscuit' is roughly equivalent to a US 'cookie' or 'cracker'). Chocolate covered biscuits, however, are classed as luxury items and are subject to VAT at 17.5%. McVitie's classed its Jaffa Cakes as cakes, but in 1991 this was challenged in court. This may have been because their Jaffa Cakes are about the same size and shape as some types of biscuit. The question which had to be answered was what criteria should be used to class something as a cake or biscuit. McVitie's defended the classification of Jaffa Cakes as a cake by producing a giant jaffa cake to illustrate that their jaffa cakes were simply mini cakes. They also argued that the distinction between cakes and biscuits is simply that cakes go hard when stale, whereas biscuits go soft. It was demonstrated that Jaffa Cakes become hard when stale and McVitie's won the case."
