Last week the Heritage Alliance met the Office of Tax Simplification as part of their call for evidence on VAT. We stressed the public benefit and opportunity to simplify the VAT charged on repair and maintenance of buildings to 5% across the board.
We highlighted the Experian Report on the effects of reducing VAT to 5%, commissioned by the Cut the VAT Alliance of which we are a member. This report found that between 2015 and 2020 cutting VAT on housing renovation and repair work from 20% to 5% would create a huge economic stimulus of more than £15 billion over the five-year period. This VAT reduction could also create more than 42,000 extra full-time equivalent construction jobs and an additional 53,000 jobs in the wider economy by the end of this period.
We will be raising this and other issues in our forthcoming meeting with the Treasury.