End luxury item tax on safety products

Make residential safety products more affordable – and save more lives

Residential safety products and services – smoke alarms, annual gas safety checks, fire assessments and carbon monoxide detectors for example – are currently taxed at 20 per cent VAT.

There is a strong ethical argument for removing VAT charged on products and services whose sole purpose is to save lives.

Annual MOT inspections, which are also intended to save lives, are zero-rated, as are safety products in newly constructed homes.

But in stark contrast, when a landlord, tenant or homeowner of an existing property purchases these products the price is inflated by a 20 per cent VAT charge.

There are almost 10 million rented homes in the UK.

This includes 4.3 million social rented and 5 million privately rented.

Housing associations and landlords have a legal requirement to ensure that these homes are safe.

The VAT currently generated from safety products charged at 20 per cent is in excess of £200million each year.

But every year in the UK hundreds of people die and many thousands are seriously injured in their own homes because of fire, carbon monoxide poisoning, gas explosions and electrocution.

And official records show that a high proportion of these casualties are caused by, or are substantially the result of, faulty or missing residential safety products.

It has been claimed that official statistics may in fact understate the level of risk.

It is well established that adoption of such products, including, for example, smoke detectors, CO detectors and fire extinguishers, has made a significant impact in reducing domestic deaths and injuries.

However, the fact is that a large number of households still have none of these products installed or have old, broken and unreliable products in their homes, and much of this due to the cost.

So this is literally a matter of life and death.

Removing VAT on residential safety products and services will make safety more affordable, and the millions saved can be re-invested into more safety products and services for tenants and reduce the number of incidents in the UK.

The Safety Tax campaign, led by British safety software company Gas Tag, and supported by housing associations and MPs, is urging the government to vote to remove VAT on all residential safety products and services, which will:

Make residential safety products more affordable to save more lives; and

Save millions of pounds each year, which could be re-invested by social landlords and Councils to make homes even safer.

Supporting this campaign, Mike Amesbury, MP for Weaver Vale – and a Member of the Communities and Local Government Select Committee, said: “It is ridiculous that tax is charged on safety products and services.

“Removing the VAT will make them more affordable and save more lives.

“It’s the right thing to do.”

Or, as Emma Dent Coad, MP for Kensington, put it: “It is a total disgrace that safety products are taxed as if they are luxury items.

“VAT must be reduced so that everyone can afford to buy them and be safe in their homes.

“It’s a no-brainer.”

Sign the petition calling on the government to Axe the Safety Tax, and remove VAT on safety products and services for residential homes here.

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