We Need Your Help HMRC Are Trying to Shut Us Down with a Huge VAT Bill !

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We’re heartbroken to share that Who’s Got the Bag is now facing a serious VAT bill of £19,643.96 after HMRC decided to backdate a year’s worth of VAT on our freeze-dried products.

For those who don’t know, we make freeze-dried toppings mainly for milkshakes, cookies, dessert shops and bakeries they’re not sold as snacks. But HMRC is claiming that because some customers left reviews saying they eat them directly, they now count as "snacks" and must have VAT added. They’ve said we can’t win if we try to fight it, even referencing a case against Walkers about poppadoms in a bag.

There’s no proper guidance about freeze-dried candy on the HMRC site, so we’ve been left guessing. If they’d told us a year ago, we would’ve added VAT to our prices straigh

t away. Instead, they kept saying they were checking "next quarter", then doing it again and again for 4 quarters in a row. We gave them everything they asked for, but they just kept changing the rules.

Even our amazing MP Caroline Dinenage has stepped in to help and pushed them for answers, but we’re still being hit with the full liability.

To make things worse, they’re now blanketing all our shop income even from VAT-free items like nuts, fruit, cookies and milkshakes just because it’s "too hard" for them to break it down, even though we use Shopify which gives a clear report.

We’ve also contacted The Adjudicator’s Office, but they couldn’t help either. We’re doing everything we can.

This whole situation has left us drained. We’re a small business with low footfall, rising bills and no way to pay this out of thin air. We don’t want to close our doors we love what we do and we love serving this community.

We’ve set up a GoFundMe to ask for your support. We never thought we’d be in this position, but if anyone can spare a couple of quid or even just share our story, it could honestly save us.

Thank you to everyone who’s supported us so far, left a kind review, bought from our shop or told a friend about us. We’re so grateful.

With love,

James & Jony, Tom and Grandmar @Who’s Got the Bag

To everyone who’s donated we’ll be making a special piece of work with your names to display in our store, showing our gratitude forever in our hearts. Thank you for standing with us in this tough time ❤️