Taking Cathedral and Church alterations out of VAT is a start, but what about …

Posted on by Listify Me

By
Clive Aslet


PUBLISHED:

17:24 GMT, 18 May 2012

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UPDATED:

17:26 GMT, 18 May 2012

Hallelujah! Praise to the Holiest in the height, And in the depth be praise.  George Osborne says that he will think again about clobbering our churches and cathedrals with 20% VAT on alterations. 

It is a U-turn we should be thankful for. Congregations great and small find it difficult enough to raise the money to keep places of worship in proper shape. For the half a dozen people who make up the regulars at a small country church it can a desperate struggle. And remember, these are some of the most important buildings in the land.

I’ve recently been involved with St Augustine’s Ramsgate, the masterpiece built by AWN Pugin next to his own house (and with his own money). It’s where he is buried. That is a Catholic Church, in a rather deprived area.  Suddenly being expected to find an extra 20% on top of what they’d already budgeted and spent was forcing the priest to his knees. Now it seems that Someone – Mr Osborne, if not the Almighty – has heard his prayer.

Tax break: George Osborne has backed down from his budget plan to charge VAT on alterations to churches and cathedrals

Frankly, it was incredible that he could have thought of introducing this tax in the first place. Good for the media who rose up and slammed it as a Cathedral Tax, to stand beside the Pasty Tax and all the other (supposed) iniquities of the budget.  But wait a minute.  Did they understand what was at issue any more than Mr Osborne? 

Certainly it is wrong to tax alterations to listed buildings, but what about repairs? They are still taxed at 20%. William Morris, the great Arts and Crafts campaigner and founder of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, would have said that it is far more important to repair old buildings than to alter them. Alterations are apt to muck them up, whereas repairs simply keep them standing in their original condition for future generations to enjoy.

And it looks as though only churches and cathedrals will keep the exemption anyway. What about all those listed dwellings, whether country houses or cottages, Bath terraces or Belfast pubs? They didn’t catch the media’s imagination, so it looks as though they’ll have to pay. 

I was talking to a country-house owner in Herefordshire the other day. She was at her wits’ end trying to generate new sources of income to keep the roof on. She lived in a beautiful old house, passed down through her husband’s family for centuries, but she is very far from being rich in the sense of having disposable income to spend on luxurious holidays or flashy cars. It all goes on maintaining the house.

It’s rather typical of this government that they don’t see it in these terms.  To them, the owner of a listed country house must be one of their City friends, to whom an alteration is adding a new swimming pool. But the heritage is also kept going by thousands of men and women of no great means. 

But it’s an important task. Mellow stone walls, thatched roofs, tall spires, crockets, gables, finials – these are all part of our very identity.  They’re built into the British DNA. Surely it’s more important to keep up the heritage than (the government’s preferred option) plaster green fields with ugly new housing estates. And yet the latter go VAT-free. We need craftsmen, who can be trained by conservation work. Yet it’s the relatively unskilled labour, putting up factory produced units of housing, that gets the tax break. It’s plain wrong. Possibly a sin.

Mr Osborne has done something to win praise in church circles.  He’ll have to do a lot more before getting into my Kingdom of Heaven.

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Religion has enough money to pay for their own property. Just ask the poor who provide it.

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It is bizarre that the institutions to be cushioned from the new VAT rules are among the richest! I would willingly pay money to look round a cathedral and so too would a lot of other people. Would it not be better for more cathedrals to raise money by charging entrance fees than by relying on taxpayers? The share value of a company that makes pasties has fallen considerably as a consequence of the “pastie tax” and many jobs are at risk. Has the Chancellor any good news for these people?

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There should be NO VAT on building work. It`s a disgrace! ( as is the expression “value added tax.”)

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