Leave the VAT fight to us, say optical bodies

Federation of Ophthalmic and Dispensing Opticians general secretary Bob Hughes said that the profession should leave the negotiating on efforts to make dispensing services VAT-able up to their professional representatives. He reminded practitioners that they paid fees to the representative bodies to have the expertise to deal with these type of issues. 'We are tackling this one, and we believe we can win. We could be blown off course by amateur intervention at this stage, so 'keep calm' is definitely the message.' Mr Hughes said the bodies had adopted a policy 'for the greatest possible unity within optics to fight this'. 'It's very important that people don't go ahead with what they might think are good ideas as an individual or on behalf of an individual because we're going to end up at sixes and sevens which is just where Customs & Excise would like us to be.' However, the professional bodies have changed tactics, dropping the plan reported last week (News, March 2) to ask for the June implementation date to be delayed. As optician went to press Mr Hughes was meeting with Ian Hunter, the Association of Optometrists' chief executive, and Tony Garrett, general secretary of the Association of British Dispensing Opticians, to refine the bodies' legal and tax advice. 'If Customs thinks it is right, then they must make a ruling and seek to impose it,' said Mr Hughes. 'We think they are wrong, and wrong in law, so we will oppose it very strongly. 'However, what's most important at the moment is that nobody takes precipitous action until the representative bodies have moved on this. 'We have very clear strategies, but we have to make sure we've got them combined and refined. We just have to decide which of these strategies to follow and in which order.'