Vivien Saunders OBE, former British Women’s Open Golf Champion, has launched an e-petition on the Government website asking for a debate in Parliament to get a 5% reduced rate of VAT for playing and watching sport. The e-petition is at http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/12244 or can be found by searching Google e-petitions and then VAT sport.
The European Union VAT rules allow a reduced rate of VAT for 18 types of goods and services. Two of these are admission to sports events and playing sport. Sixteen other EU countries have adopted Reduced Rate VAT for sport since 2006. The UK Governments have failed to do so. The Reduced Rate varies from country to country. In Luxembourg it is 3%; in Ireland 9%. In the UK it is 5%.
We need 100,000 e-signatures on the petition to force a debate in Parliament.
Who would benefit? All sports fans paying for admission to major sports events – football, rugby, cricket and, of course, the Open Golf Championship and Wimbledon tennis.
If the 5% rate is adopted it would, for example, cut the cost of an £80 ticket to £70 – the price band for tickets to many of these sports.
Vivien – “Major sports organisations, including the Olympics, have already set and advertised their prices for 2012. But long term we would see these price cuts”.
Secondly, it would help cut the costs of playing sport – fitness centres, golf green fees, swimming and membership of commercial and public golf and tennis clubs.
Vivien – “The only people who don’t pay VAT on sport at present are members of member-owned clubs – private golf clubs and tennis clubs. Put simply, the man in the street pays VAT on his sport; the members of the country’s smartest golf clubs don’t!”
Vivien Saunders, “In sport there has been a real distortion of the way sportsmen pay for their sport. Members of member-owned sports clubs have VAT exempt subs and don’t pay VAT. That’s the really wealthy golf and tennis clubs – Sunningdale, Roehampton and so on. Those who belong to commercial fitness centres – David Lloyd or Virgin Active – or who pay for their sport on a daily basis – the gym, swimming, golf – pay 20% VAT on their sport.
“The stupidest of all is golf; members of privately owned clubs, like Royal St. George’s in Kent, where they staged the 2011 Open Championship, have VAT exempt golf memberships. Members at Prince’s Golf Club, just across their boundary fence, and not quite as posh, have to pay 20% VAT because the members don’t own it.”
The people who will really benefit from a 5% rate are the sports fans who can look forward to cheaper ticket prices and the “man in the street” who pays for his sport on a daily basis.
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For further information please contact:
Vivien Saunders OBE
Association of Golf Course Owners
Abbotsley Golf Club,
St. Neots, Cambridgeshire PE19 6XN
www.agco.org.uk
Email: viv@agco.org.uk Tel: 07956 628338