Snowball's chance

There’ll be dancing on the streets of Scotland today at the news that snowballs – those chocolate- and coconut-covered marshmallow confections – are cakes.

An Edinburgh tribunal overturned a previous ruling that snowballs should be standard-rated in terms of VAT (cakes, of course, are exempt).

The tribunal concluded that: “A snowball looks like a cake. It is not out of place on a plate full of cakes. A snowball has the mouthfeel of a cake. Most people would want to enjoy a beverage of some sort while consuming it. It would often be eaten in a similar way to cakes - for example to celebrate a birthday in an office.

“We are wholly agreed that a snowball is a confection to be savoured, but not while walking around or, for example, in the street… Although by no means everyone considers a snowball to be a cake we find that these facts, in particular, mean that a snowball has sufficient characteristics to be characterised as a cake.”

Judges Peter Sheppard and Anne Scott were certainly impeccable in their research. At the tribunal – in what one must assume was one of the less gruelling tasks they have been called upon to perform in their legal careers (unless, of course, they don’t have a sweet tooth) – they were reportedly presented with a plate of Jaffa Cakes, Bakewell tarts, tea cakes, Lees Snowballs, and Waitrose meringues by way of comparison.

Jaffa Cakes of course were themselves the subject of a legal battle in 1991 over whether they were cakes or biscuits. They were eventually found to be cakes – as their name had insisted all along – by means of the simple test that cakes go hard when stale, and biscuits go soft.

Two Scottish suppliers, Tunnock’s and Lees, will be celebrating this week’s ruling – which is estimated to cost the HRMC £2.8m in lost tax revenue.

Of course, in battles with the taxman, it doesn’t always go the supplier’s way. In 2009, HMRC won its fight to have VAT slapped on Pringles, having argued it was a potato snack, and therefore liable. Pringles owner P&G had claimed it was not similar to crisps because the flour content of the product, its regular shape and “mouth melt” taste made it a snack rather than a potato crisp.

Perhaps – for the sake of the waistlines of our legal profession, if nothing else – we need a little more clarity on which food products are liable for VAT, and which are not; something a little more scientific than eating a plate of biscuits and weighing up the “mouthfeel” of a product.

As for the humble snowball, it may have escaped the taxman’s clutches, but in the current climate, I sense it will still have to watch its back. How much sugar is in the typical snowball, I wonder..?