Doing your VAT return is like being a stripper in an empty room

Full marks to Times columnist Libby Purves for what I think is probably the best commentary on the pointless VAT rate change announced in the PBR.

Here are just a few of her choice remarks:

• The VAT reduction is the final provocation. It is a stupid tax anyway, visibly inferior to the simple old purchase tax.
• I am an unpaid and irritable tax collector, yet of very little help to the Exchequer. It is like being a stripper in an empty room: a terrible waste of sequins and effort.
• But the absurd and temporary 2.5 per cent reduction puts the tin lid on it. It is the silliest gesture since Harold Wilson banged double VAT on yacht equipment to annoy Ted Heath.