Jaffa Cakes and their tax status

The UK case about the Value-Added Tax (VAT) status of Jaffa Cakes was widely reported in the accountancy professional press at the time (early 1990s). The daftness of this case was enhanced, for me, by the knowledge that a lot of highly-paid lawyers were taking it very seriously indeed - there was a lot of money at stake after all.

• United Biscuits (the brand owners') page
• BBC Jaffa Cakes information page (facts of the VAT case are garbled here)
• BBC VAT information page. Wheel down to the final couple of sections of this otherwise rather boring page for the CORRECT information about the Jaffa Cakes case.
• Hansard Online 14 Jan 1997. See column 197 - my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester makes a very good point here about tax legislation in general.
• Guardian Notes and Queries - a query about whether a Jaffa Cake is a cake or a biscuit. Some of the answers here are somewhat garbled versions of the correct facts.