FairPlay is urging the government to set up a new review panel to consider including chicken in the items that are free of value-added tax (VAT).
The need for VAT-free chicken is even more urgent than it was in 2018, when the VAT-free basket was last reviewed, FairPlay founder Francois Baird said in an article in The National (formerly Business Report).
Baird noted that the 2018 expert panel found a number of reasons why chicken portions should be zero-rated, but could not reach consensus.
The result was that white bread flour and cake flour were zero-rated, but not chicken or any other meat protein. And, in the eight years since, the government has refused to include chicken in the VAT-free food basket.
Baird said it was time to appoint a new panel of experts to review the issue.
The 2018 panel had conceded that chicken “is the largest staple protein for low-income households” and that measures to hold down the price would be desirable. It even noted that the popular packs of individually quick frozen (IQF) chicken portions “are disproportionately consumed by low-income households”.
But, because of a lack of consensus, and a suspicion by some panel members that the VAT savings might not be passed on to consumers, nothing happened.
“There the matter has rested for eight years, while the number of poor people has increased,” Baird said.
“An initiative that would result in an immediate price drop of chicken pieces has been repeatedly rejected. Poor people pay 15% more than they need to for chicken, and there is still no meat protein in the VAT-free basket.
“It is time for another expert panel to look into the matter. Perhaps, this time, the panel will do what they should have done eight years ago, and remove VAT from the chicken products that are essential for poor people,” Baird concluded.
