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News Release from: Federation of Master Builders (FMB) | Subject: VAT bill on home repairs
Edited by the Buildingtalk Editorial
Team on 14 December 2007
GBP700m VAT bill on home repairs
condemned by FMB
Government commitment to invest over GBP4 billion in the existing housing stock ignores the fact that an estimated GBP700 million of this amount will go straight back to them in VAT.
Brian Berry, the FMB's Director of External Affairs said, "It's a scandal that the estimated GBP700m VAT bill will go straight back to the Treasury" "GBP700m is enough money to repair more than 43,000 of the 2.7million homes classed as non decent in the English House Conditions Survey"
This article was originally published on Buildingtalk on 27 Jun 2003 at 8.00am (UK)
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"Instead of using this money to improve the living conditions of thousands of people, it will be funnelled back to the Treasury in a 'Yes Prime Minister' bureaucratic exercise in tax reclamation, needlessly leaving thousands of families in substandard housing".
He continued," Even a cut in the current, crippling VAT 17.5% rate to 5% would mean investment in improving an extra 31,000 homes, and the Treasury would still get around GBP200m of it back".
"The Government is always telling us how important children and families and armed forces personnel are to them, how about starting by giving them somewhere decent to live?".
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