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Lib Dem MP calls for tax avoidance

Cornish MP Adrian Sanders argues for mass avoidance of pasty tax.

New Statesman
Lib Dem MP Adrian Sanders called for "every business" in Cornwall to stop selling hot pasties. Photograph: Getty Images.

Three weeks on from the Budget, the row over the pasty tax rumbles on. Following yesterday's summit in Truro, Cornish MPs from all three parties are reportedly planning to form a coalition to prevent the measure passing through Parliament. Meanwhile, the Lib Dem MP for Torbay, Adrian Sanders, has openly called for traders to avoid the tax. He writes on his blog:

I think there’s a way round this if every business in Devon & Cornwall stopped selling hot pasties. Once the customer has paid for their cold pasty they hand it back to the shop and ask if they wouldn’t mind putting it in the microwave or in the oven for collection later!

The key is for the shop not to advertise such a service and for us – the pasty eating customers – to ensure we are all in on the secret.

It's a not-so-secret call for mass tax avoidance. Can we expect George Osborne, who has described "aggressive tax avoidance" as "morally repugnant" [even while rewarding it] to come down "like a ton of bricks" on Sanders?

Hat-tip: James Ball.

7 comments

smileycharlie's picture

I don't understand - when did this stop being standard practise? (As a kid the village bakery always told us to buy it cold and use the microwave at the back, because that meant it was VAT free, but if we got the hot ones we had to pay VAT)

Benjamin Rae's picture

Wonder if his principled stance led him to vote against the budget.

Avocatus diabloli's picture

The Torbay constituency is in Devon, so Adrian Sanders is a Devon MP, not a Cornish one.

tommy5d's picture

And next time I go to get some fish 'n' chips I'll buy it frozen and then ask if they can cook it for me so I can save 40p? Let's remember pasty-tax is about ensuring all take-away food has equal VAT.

Liberalone's picture

Since when has Torbay been in Cornall - you may have just started a cross Tamar war!

DMyers's picture

Read it again. He hasn't suggested that Torbay is in Cornwall...

Avocatus diabloli's picture

Adrian Sanders isn't a Cornish MP in any sense. He's from Paignton. He went to a Grammar School in Torquay. He isn't Cornish, and Torbay isn't in Cornwall. So the description 'Cornish MP' is inaccurate.

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