In Corte Diletto v HMRC [2020] UKFTT 75 (TC) (6 February) the FTT found that small balls made from dates nuts and other natural ingredients with no added sugar were to be regarded as confectionary (but not cakes which although confectionary may nevertheless be zero-rated) and consequently were standard-rated.
The tribunal went into considerable detail over the marketing (particularly over social media) of the product which could perhaps be described ‘a healthy luxury snack’. The tribunal harboured significant doubts as to whether it could be regarded as healthy but this was irrelevant to the VAT liability. It considered that the correct test was the view of the ‘ordinary man in the street’; this should be interpreted as an ordinary man who had been given the same information as the tribunal rather than an uninformed man.
The tribunal then turned to the question of whether...
