This month, UK VAT celebrates its 40th birthday. Here, practitioners reflect on VAT's evolution in the UK and the spread of consumption taxes across the globe
Daniel Lyons
VAT partner Deloitte
Ron Nattrass
Senior manager Deloitte
On All Fools’ Day 1973 the UK got its first taste of a new tax: VAT. It had been introduced in the House of Commons the previous year by the chancellor Anthony Barber who famously described it as a ‘simple tax’. The introduction of VAT was of course a condition of the UK’s entry into what was then called the Common Market. Care and management of the new tax was given not to the Inland Revenue but...
