VPROTEQUIP2060 - Protective equipment: Protective boots and helmets for industrial use: Main issues arising from the law

Up to 31 December 2020 (end of the transition period) following the UK leaving the EU, the legislation stated that to qualify for zero-rating, protective boots and helmets must pass all of the following tests:

• they must be protective boots or helmets;
• they must be for industrial use;
• they must be manufactured to the appropriate British or European standard;
• they must bear a mark indicating conformity with those standards; and
• they must not be supplied to a person for the use by his employees.

These tests tend to raise most of the questions around which all liability problems revolve and are dealt with in detail in VAT Notice 701/23 Protective equipment.

The 2018 Taxation Cross Border Act changed the wording of the legislation relating to the ‘appropriate British or European standard’ to ‘standards which satisfy the requirements of regulation 8(2) of the Personal Protective Equipment Regulations 2002 and bear the mark of conformity to that regulation’.