THE GUV'NOR

Dennis Griffiths

The licensee

of the Miners' Rest, Barnsley, provides a new slant on the

supermarket pricing debate

It has not been a good start to the year with the 12% increase in gas and electricity, imminent price rises for the on-trade and cheap supermarket prices,

so let's dwell on the latter.

As I understand it, if I buy a quantity of alcohol, say at £100 plus VAT, that is

£117.50, I then claim £17.50 back, then I sell the alcohol at £200 plus VAT, which provides a total of £235.

I then pay £35 to HM Revenue & Customs. I have paid in total £17.50 VAT.

point I'd like to make regards a supermarket buying £100 in alcohol (plus VAT), making for a total of £117.50, and then claiming that £17.50 back, as we do.

They then [the supermarkets] sell that alcohol for, say, £75 plus VAT. That's a total of £88.12. They then pay HMRC only £13.12 in VAT, so they are £4.38 in front, in terms of VAT.

But that's silly - because they have lost £20.62 worth of alcohol sales.

Although, they could,

I suppose, make that back with the sale of groceries and other goods that are free of VAT.

That's my point, but of course this cannot be right because, if it were, then the Government would be subsidising cheap alcohol, and at the same time losing millions of pounds in revenue - and of course the state would not allow this

to happen.

So forgive me for wasting your time with my silly ideas, but may I take this opportunity to wish you all the best in the new year despite the many problems facing the on-trade.