Delay to VAT hike on food supplements is welcomed locally
HEALTH food shops in Kerry have welcomed the plan to delay the proposed 23-per-cent VAT increase on food health supplements, including on vitamins and minerals used by thousands across the country daily.
The new VAT rate was to come into place last Friday, but there were concerns from many local health food shops about how this would be implemented and what effect it would have on the health products industry and on people’s health across the country.
In recent weeks Milltown Organic Store held a public day of action against the proposals, and Lillian Leask of the store felt the VAT hike showed the Government’s ‘only interest was in making money’.
The health products industry launched a campaign appealing to the Revenue Commissioners and the Minister for Finance Paschal Donohoe to defer the application of 23-percent VAT on food supplements so as to allow the Government time to take the advice and legislate.
Suzan Turan of The Aquarian Health Shop in Cahersiveen said that the VAT would make food supplements very expensive for consumers and that the lack of information about how this new rate would be implemented was a huge worry, particularly for small health food shop owners.
“We have no idea how this will work and Revenue have not provided any information,” she claimed.
She believes that the new tax is “disrespectful” to everyone who takes food supplements and that it’s about money, not the health of our nation.
“People will just buy on-line or buy them abroad and this will drive revenue out of the country,” she added.
Minister for Finance Paschal Donohoe wrote to Revenue last week to postpone the hike until November 2019.