In particular healthy Juice drinks.

I have just spotted in my mocchings about the information super highway a petition that was sent to Downing Street. The request was for healthy juice drinks (the juice only, no e numbers, extra sugar etc) to have the VAT cut to the minimum permissible amount (5%.) Sounds reasonable?

Well, let me put it another way - cakes, chips, milkshakes and several other food products command a 0% VAT.

Or let me put it another way - if this fruit was fresh, frozen or tinned, it would command 0% VAT.

So, a little odd that in juice form you have to pay the full VAT rate? I thought so to. And this was the response of the Government:

To date the Government has been sparing in its use of VAT reduced rates and has only applied these where they are affordable....
... Dietary based taxes were considered by Derek Wanless in ‘Securing Good Health for the Whole Population’ - published in 2004. The report highlights a number of difficulties of principle and practice in any attempt to use the tax system to influence diet. Furthermore, European VAT rules require that in most cases...
... Outside the tax system, the Government is taking a number of targeted steps to encourage people to eat more healthily, and especially to protect children from unhealthy choices.

To read full response follow this link

So, in English what does it mean (and of course this is only my view)?

Well, firstly it smacks of a jobsworth with a "too much like hard work" attitude. And then you move onto the last part of the response, "Outside the Tax System".

I just love that bit. We're spending your tax to encourage you to buy more products which generate this funding. Catch-22 anyone?

Difficult, it may well be. Nobody told you that governing a country would be a walk in the park. And to be honest, Gordon Brown is in part responsible for the mess that the tax system is in, after all under his watch as chancellor he created extra rules and red tape, so sympathy to his government's plight in navigating its way round the English Tax system isn't going to generate sympathy from me.

So, instead of telling us how you are spending our tax to try and convince us to be healthier, you just cut the rate on the healthy foods to give the carrot and stick approach to those who need it?

After all, in the long run it'll do the NHS a favour and save money somewhere else.

Sometimes I wonder just what they're doing with my money