Links - 23rd July 2020 (2) (George Pell acquittal, The complications of VAT)

George Pell: Court quashes cardinal's sexual abuse convictions - "Cardinal George Pell has been freed from jail after Australia's highest court overturned his convictions for child sexual abuse.The ex-Vatican treasurer, 78, was the most senior Catholic figure ever jailed for such crimes.In 2018, a jury found he abused two boys in Melbourne in the 1990s... A full bench of seven judges ruled unanimously in Cardinal Pell's favour, finding that the jury had not properly considered all the evidence presented at the trial."I see many people upset about this. Anti-catholic and anti-"pedo" sentiment combine to make Pell a perfect villain, regardles of the facts of the case

Details of Cardinal Pell's trial have emerged, after a guilty verdict - "Only one of the alleged victims was present in court to give evidence against Pell. The other alleged victim, according a 2017 report from The Australian newspaper The Age, died of a drug overdose in 2014.Before his death, the deceased man reportedly told his mother at least twice that he had not been a victim of sexual abuse. The other former choir member reportedly told the deceased man’s mother only after the man died that both had been abused by Pell... According to the prosecution, Pell and the choir members “went missing” from a recessional procession at the end of a Mass celebrated by the archbishop. Pell is alleged to have abused the choristers somewhere within the cathedral sacristy immediately following that Mass... In June 2017, a priest who says he was with the archbishop every time Pell celebrated Mass at Melbourne’s cathedral was questioned by police about a timeframe that seems to match the one identified by prosecutors. The priest told police that there was no occasion when Pell would have been alone with choir members. “At no time before, during or after Mass was the Archbishop in direct contact with anyone except that I was present,’’ the priest said, according to The Australian. “I was always standing next to him and usually at an arm’s length away.’’... Melbourne’s cathedral was undergoing restoration work at the time of his installation in August 1996, which prevented Pell from being installed in the cathedral building itself or from regularly celebrating Mass there for several weeks.In fact, during the pre-trial committal hearing in March 2018, records were produced showing that during the period between August and December 1996, Pell only celebrated the cathedral’s 10:30 Sunday Mass twice.According to a source present for the pre-trial hearing, on both of the occasions on which Pell celebrated the cathedral’s 10:30 Mass during the designated period, the choir held practices for the taping of a Christmas performance immediately following the 10:30 Mass, when the absence of two choristers would have been immediately noticed.Cathedral and choir leaders and former members testified at the pre-trial hearing that choir leaders kept a close eye on the children and would have noticed if any slipped away. Former choir director Peter Finigan testified at the committal hearing that while it would have been possible for two choir members to break from their group, he did not remember that it had ever happened... a pastoral associate at the cathedral, Rodney Dearing, told the court that Pell required help to remove his vestments after every Mass, and it would have been nearly impossible for the archbishop to expose his genitals while fully vested, or to commit other sexual acts in the vestments.Dearing also told Victoria police that the layout of the cathedral did not align with the accusations... the court heard witness testimony that Pell had been with guests immediately following Mass on one of the two Sundays. Sources close to the trial underscored to CNA that cases of sexual abuse often rely on the persuasive testimony of the victims, and that due to the nature of sexual abuse crimes, corroborating evidence is difficult to present. In such cases, the relative reliability of the victims can be a crucial factor. During Pell’s trial, the judge reportedly excluded both the prosecution and the defense from disclosing to the jury or discussing in court anything which could bear upon the credibility of the accuser. The Melbourne trial began in June, ending first in a hung jury and a mistrial, with jurors reportedly siding 10-2 in favor of Pell’s innocence. A second hearing with a new jury began in November, delivering a unanimous conviction...Prior to the institution of the gag order, questions were raised by Australian media and legal figures about the possibility that jury pools could be tainted by years of negative coverage of Pell.In other Australian states, high-profile cases like Pell’s have the option of being tried by a judge only, without a jury, called a bench trial. Victoria, where Pell is on trial, is one of the only jurisdictions in Australia not to have this option."

Dallas Beaufort - "In the 1980s and early ’90s, I say without the slightest hesitation that these allegations would have been given short shrift by competent, experienced Crown Prosecutors. They lack any corroboration, are fanciful beyond rational belief and contain within them internal inconsistencies of an irreconcilable nature as to time, Opportunity, practicality, place and circumstance. To contemplate that approximately twenty years after the alleged offending, a complainant came forward following an advertisement by the police about St Patrick’s Cathedral defies every tenet of the maintenance of purity in the criminal justice system. That unprecedented process aligned the police with complainants whereas they must have a degree of separation in order to afford fair trials. In advance of this debacle, in my legal experience: a political change developed in the late ’80s and has continued up to this date when it comes to allegations of a sexual nature. Certain mandatory common law judicial directions, seen as protections for a fair trial, such as warning the jury that, “… it’s dangerous to convict on the uncorroborated evidence of a complainant”, that “allegations of a sexual nature are the easiest to make and the hardest to refute”, and “… in complaints Of a sexual nature experience has shown that complaints are sometimes made for a reason and other times for no reason at all, which is why the evidence of a complainant must be carefully scrutinised …” and the importance of “fresh complaint” (absent in most cases these days) have been abrogated by Statute. This despite the fact that due to the introduction of State-sponsored criminal compensation schemes (let alone church compensation packages and extending limitation periods for civil actions), there are in modern times reasons of a financial nature that could prompt the making of such complaints... I found in the ’90s and thereafter defending clients, predominantly, though not entirely, men accused of historical sex offences, had morphed into an inversion of the venerable onus of proof and thereby debrided the standard of prove required. Thus, when a trial started and the Crown opened, my client had an evidentiary onus to rebut a presumption that had arisen that he was guilty despite every warning to the contrary. (viz. “all complainants must be believed”.) Then, if he wasn’t a good witness, as most defendants, even competent lawyers, aren’t, it became a ‚toss-up, “who do we believe”‚ scenario rather than, “if there is any doubt whatsoever, that is if, having weighed the evidence, you as a jury retain a reasonable doubt, your absolute duty is to acquit”.

Budget 2012: Greggs sausage rolls to be hit - "Currently, most hot takeaway food such as meals bought from a restaurant or fish and chip shop are subject to VAT. However, a small number of items have managed to avoid the tax, including rotisserie chickens sold in supermarkets and sausage rolls and hot bakes sold by some outlets, notably Greggs.In the Budget it was announced that: "VAT will also apply, to the extent that it does not already do so, to the sale of hot food, cold food consumed on the supplier’s premises, sports drinks and holiday caravans, and to the rental of hairdressers’ chairs. This will have effect from 1 October 2012."Greggs, which has more outlets in Britain than any other takeaway company, sells 140m sausage rolls every year. It has successfully argued – following a lengthy and complex VAT tribunal – that the products are baked in store, and just happen to be hot. As a result its hot pastry products have been free of VAT. A source at the Treasury said: "We want to remove all these anomalies. This is a big step towards simplifying the VAT system." They added that anything that a normal consumer would consider hot, would be deemed by the Treasury to be so and subject to the tax. Most tax experts believe the definition of "hot" is above room temperature... Other companies affected by the VAT simplification are many of the self-storage companies, such as Big Yellow and Access, which do not charge VAT to their customers, under rules which allow them to be classified them as property companies... Static caravans, an their more upmarket versions such as "log cabins" have for many years being zero rated, while their wheeled versions have been subject to VAT. The static versions will now be hit by the full rate of VAT."
VAT exemptions are politically popular, but lead to this sort of rubbish, which raises compliance costs. At least the confusion is transparent to the consumer though

Budget 2012: Sausage roll VAT row turns unsavoury - "It is the not the first time that food has fallen foul of the taxman. In the 'biscuit tax wars', McVitie's won a lengthy legal fight to have Jaffa cakes reclassified as cakes rather than chocolate-covered biscuits."

Catering, takeaway food (VAT Notice 709/1) - GOV.UK - "If you supply food that your customers must prepare themselves before it can be consumed, this is not a supply in the course of catering. This will apply whether the food is delivered to, or collected by, your customers... For these purposes, ‘preparation’ includes:
thawing frozen food
cooking food
reheating pre-cooked food
arranging food on serving plates...
If you make a service charge, it’s standard-rated. But if the customer freely gives a tip above your total charge, no VAT is due on the tip...
Certain supplies of education, training and research are exempt from VAT. Where an educational institution provides exempt education to its own pupils and students, then the supply of catering they make is also exempt... You must account for VAT on supplies of catering to staff and visitors (except visiting students)... You must always charge VAT at the standard rate if you make a supply of food and drink for consumption on the premises that it’s supplied in... ‘premises’ are the areas occupied by the retailer or, any area set aside for the consumption of food by the food retailers’ customers, whether or not the area may also be used by the customers of other food retailers... The definition of premises does not include areas with tables and chairs provided for general use by members of the public who are not customers of one or more food retailer... Where you make sales of cold food to be taken away from your premises, but also have on-site facilities where food can be consumed, you’ll need to apportion your sales of cold food between those consumed on the premises (standard-rated) and those taken-away (zero-rated).If you are unable to ascertain the correct liability at the point of sale, see paragraph 5.6, you must keep satisfactory evidence to support a fair and reasonable apportionment...
The sale of food is standard-rated if the food (or any part of it) is hot at the time that it’s provided to the customer (the precondition), and one or more of the following 5 tests are satisfied, it’s:
been heated for the purposes of enabling it to be consumed hot
been heated to order
been kept hot after being heated
provided to a customer in packaging that retains heat (whether or not the packaging was primarily designed for that purpose) or in any other packaging that is specifically designed for hot food
advertised or marketed in a way that indicates that it’s supplied hot...
If you sell food to be taken away for consumption elsewhere, but you make a microwave oven available for your customers to heat up the food, either before or after the till point, you’re making a supply of hot food which must be standard-rated. This is the case whether or not you make a charge for the use of the oven... If you sell a mixture of standard-rated and zero-rated items for an inclusive price for consumption off the premises, you’ll have to work out the tax value of each item in order to calculate how much VAT is due on the standard-rated item. You can do this on the basis of cost or market values"

Food products (VAT Notice 701/14) - GOV.UK - "Vegetable oils, maize (corn), rapeseed, groundnut (arachis), olive (including olive oil BP), almond (but not bitter almond oil), sesame seed, sunflower seed, palm kernel, walnut, soya and blends of these
Zero rate
Even if they’re used as massage or cosmetic oils, provided they’re of a type and grade suitable for culinary purposes, and they don’t contain any substance, such as perfume, that would make them unsuitable for culinary use...
Monosodium glutamate
Standard rate
Not a food product in its own right...
Although most traditional bakery products, such as bread, biscuits and cakes, are zero rated, some confectionery is standard rated including:
biscuits wholly or partly covered in chocolate (or some product similar in taste and appearance)
any item of sweetened prepared food, other than cakes and non-chocolate biscuits, which is normally eaten with the fingers...
Flapjacks - Zero rated
Cereal, muesli and similar sweet tasting bars - Standard rated"