Band Aid receives £2m VAT bonus
Treasury hands over £2m in VAT to Band Aid charity to help Third World poverty
The Treasury has refunded £2m in VAT to the Band Aid Trust – the equivalent to the VAT paid on more than 1 million purchases of the Christmas Band Aid 20 record and 300,000 purchases of the DVD of the 1985 Live Aid concert.
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Economic Secretary to the Treasury, Ivan Lewis, today announced that the Treasury had paid £2,161,504 to the Band Aid Charitable Trust to help fund the Trust’s work in tackling poverty and disease in the poorest parts of Africa.
Lewis said: ‘when the chancellor announced our plans for a VAT refund in November, we hoped that the record and DVD would be a success, and once again the British people have responded with huge generosity and goodwill to these fund-raising efforts.
‘Band Aid has been raising the plight of the world’s poorest people for 20 years now, and it gives me great pleasure that this money will aid the vital work that the Band Aid Trust continues to carry out in the most deprived parts of Africa.’
John Kennedy, Band Aid Trustee said he was ‘delighted’ to receive the Treasury’s donation, which will be used to continue the trust’s work in helping to relieve hunger and poverty in Ethiopia and the surrounding countries.