Edinburgh Sucks! | Oh sh1t - has anyone paid the VAT?

Gordon Brown

Oh sh1t - has anyone paid the VAT?

By The Basa ⋅ June 17, 2006 ⋅

The boffins at Scottish Executive have massively screwed up and because of that screw-up the Scottish people have a huge £223 million hole in Scotland’s transport budget.

HM Revenue & Customs wants to charge some £110 million in VAT for the planned Aberdeen bypass, and around £69 million for the M77 extension that was completed last year south of Glasgow. In addition, a further £44 million would be levied for the planned M74 extension into Glasgow city centre.

The SNP, as usual have jumped on the situation with one of their rent-a-quote MPs (”Questions must also be asked of him for not ensuring that the scheme was watertight so it avoided a VAT levy.”)and blasted the Lib-Dem Minister Tavish Scott who has unsurprisingly kept schtumm and put forward a ’spokeswummin’ to deliver the bad news:

“the issue could seriously affect spending, but declined to elaborate…….. Losing the appeal could have significant implications for our transport budget over the next few years.”

Oh well, no surprises there - bad planning from our officials at the Scottish Executive costing us more money.

More Info: VAT demands could blow £223m gap in roads budget