Following the release of our Heritage Manifesto, the Chancellor, Phillip Hammond, invited us to meet with Treasury officials to discuss VAT.
We had a useful discussion flagging our response to the Office of Tax Simplification on how VAT can be simplified to benefit the heritage sector. We also pointed them to the high-quality research from the Cut the VAT campaign showing the benefits of a reduction of VAT to 5% across the board.
We expressed a wish to work closely with the Treasury and hope to have further dialogue on the kind the work we are doing to devise pilot schemes – perhaps, for example, refunding VAT as a grant in Heritage Action Zones.