From an article in today's Daily Mail, which I can't find online:
Why church repair bills will now be 20% higher
Churches across Britain, including some of the most beautiful and historic buildings in the land, have been hit with a VAT bombshell. A small-print clause in the Budget will mean that any alterations to thousands of listed buildings, including churches, will be liable to the 20% tax in future.
Having decided they didn't like this change one little bit, the Daily Mail's fearless reporters couldn't quite find a Poor Widow who would be 'clobbered' by this 'inquitous' tax 'grab', so they went for the next best thing:
So, for example, a church that needs to spend £18,000 to install new disabled toilets, [sic] ramps and hand rails would now suffer a £3,600 VAT bill.
Saturday, 24 March 2012
Poor Widows In Church Toilets. For The Disabled.
My latest blogpost: Poor Widows In Church Toilets. For The Disabled.Tweet this! Posted by Mark Wadsworth at 13:27
Labels: Disability, Poor Widow Bogey, Religion, Toilets, VAT
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9 comments:
That's the church that is the biggest landowner in the country, right?
Jm, it's one of the biggest but apparently not the biggest (I think the Queen in her private capacity is the biggest - so exclude Crown Estates).
It owns assets worth £6 billion, which is mainly land and building, i.e. about one per cent of the total value of land and buildings in the UK.
That's above and beyond the value of the churches themselves (as sources of income they are lousy, but they usually sit in prime town centre locations).
At the top of the list of landowners are of course the banks, not the Queen. Via mortgages secured on land and buildings they own almost a third of all UK land and buildings.
"It owns assets worth £6 billion, which is mainly land and building,"
despite which it is still facing a pension "black hole" AFAIK. A few years ago they were selling off property dirt cheap and the their administration of their estate was a byword for mis-management. As a result, all their income goes on clergy pensions and salaries. It is up to the parishes concerned to find the money to maintain their ancient church.
Prime town centre locations aren't worth much when they have buildings sitting on them that you are not allowed to demolish, like public open space in London, which is worthless as nothing can be built on it.
However, the Mail is wrong, as usual. Some time ago, there was quite a lot of political pressure to make all works to listed buildings zero-rated, not just alterations. The pols identified that the majority of this pressure was from Parochial Church Councils, bishops and the like, so brought in a scheme whereby churches got their VAT on repairs back. To quote HMRC:
"Places of Worship - Listed places of worship will also be affected by the change, although our evidence suggests that places of worship form only a small minority of the total number of listed properties in the UK*. These will be predominantly used by Christian denominations. In order to mitigate the impacts on these groups the DCMS is expanding the existing Listed Places of Worship Grant Scheme which refunds the VAT on repairs and maintenance work**, so that this includes approved alterations to listed buildings.
* but a politically influential one, obviously.
** typical Civil Service makework; instead of zero-rating repairs to listed places of worship, the state takes the money with one hand then gives it back with another.
B: "Prime town centre locations aren't worth much when they have buildings sitting on them that you are not allowed to demolish, "
I alluded to that.
As to 'typical civil service', I prefer this way of doing it, i.e. not netting of payments and receipts to a zero figure, that way it is clearer who is benefitting from what. if e.g. churches are exempt from [whatever taxes] then it's difficult to quantify the value of that exemption. But if there is a line in the government accounts for "VAT rebates to churches" then we know how much extra we are paying for their benefit.
We might consider this money well spent, we might not, but we can't decide if we don't know how much it is.
So, for example, a church that needs to spend £18,000 to install new disabled toilets, [sic] ramps and hand rails would now suffer a £3,600 VAT bill.
Not only are poor old widows frail and great fans of hand rails and spatious bathrooms in churches, they are among the few people actually going to church, so I think the DM could easily have done the extra effort of including PWs as being clobbered.
Re tax-benefits for the CoE, I assume all their investment profits are untaxed as well?
Kj What investment profits? I think the term for what the Cof E gets from its investments is usually "losses".
That's above and beyond the value of the churches themselves (as sources of income they are lousy, but they usually sit in prime town centre locations).
And of course the annual cost of upkeep.
JH, this much I do remember from RE at school: A church is not a building, a church requires no upkeep. A church is the people who meet to worship together.
Philemon 1:2
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