Summer holiday

The church needs some new trailers on which it can transport tents marquees bedding cooking equipment etc. to and from its events and the businessmen have offered to purchase these for the church. We are wondering whether for VAT and general tax purposes the parties would be better off if the businessmen purchased the equipment themselves and made gifts of the trailers to the church or would it be better if they simply gave money to enable the church to make the purchases?
We would be eternally grateful for readers' thoughts on this matter.
Query T17 014 – Tent Peg.

Reply by Neil Warren - Author - Tolley's VAT Planning 2006/07

The ideal outcome as far as VAT is concerned would be if one of the businessmen could purchase the trailers through his business reclaim input tax in full on the purchase and...