Revenue eBrief No. 048/19

Updates to VAT Tax and Duty Manual

The VAT Tax and Duty Manual has been updated as follows:

To include new chapters on:

• VAT treatment of activities of public bodies. This chapter was created to set out the Value-Added Tax (VAT) treatment of activities that are carried out by public bodies, and other bodies governed by public law.
• VAT treatment of vouchers (excluding Single Purpose Vouchers and Multi-Purpose Vouchers) that do not fall within the new rules for vouchers that were introduced by Council Directive (EU) 2016/1065.

To reflect the fact that the following chapter has been archived:

• Retail sales and credit charge cards. This chapter has been archived as the content is now available on the Revenue website.

In addition, the following chapters have been updated to take account of certain VAT rate changes in accordance with Finance Act 2018. These rate changes took effect from 1st January 2019.

• VAT on food and drink
• Mixed supplies of goods and services
• Supply of printed matter
• VAT treatment on supplies of bread
• Services connected with immovable property     
• Entrance fees to historic houses and gardens     
• Supplies of live horses, greyhound, insemination services     

The following chapters have also been updated:

• Electricity Market. This chapter has been updated to set out the VAT treatment of the Integrated Single Electricity Market (I-SEM).
• VAT on gifts and promotional items. The chapter has been updated to clarify the VAT treatment of gifts, samples, promotional schemes etc.
• VAT treatment of member-owned golf clubs. This chapter has been updated to remove certain information that is no longer relevant or that has been incorporated elsewhere on the Revenue website.

VAT treatment of staff secondments. This chapter has been updated to improve readability