Change VAT rules for nurseries, No 10 urged

Date: 17th December 2009

An owner of a private nursery has called for her VAT costs to be cut to zero by the government.

Sian Lewis-Evans, owner of Gingerbread Day Nurseries in Buckinghamshire, believes that the rules should be changed to allow her and her peers to claim the sales tax back from the goods and services they purchase, Nursery World reported.

The business owner has published a petition on the issue on the 10 Downing Street website.

Speaking to the news source, Ms Lewis-Evans said that she was losing around £15,000 a year due to the rules.

"If we were able to reinvest this money into our setting it would benefit both children and staff, as we would be able to offer more training and purchase more resources," she added.

Also commenting on the issue, Neil Leitch, director of communications at the Pre-School Learning Alliance, said: 'Becoming zero rated would allow nurseries and pre-schools to do considerably more with the revenue that they would otherwise be losing to VAT."

Chancellor of the exchequer Alistair Darling affirmed in last week's Pre-Budget Report that the sales tax would increase from 15 per cent to 17.5 per cent on January 1st 2010.

Posted by Anthony Burns