Are Pringles potato chips? Court says yes
LONDON -- Pringles are potato chips, a London court ruled today in a dispute over the salty Procter & Gamble Co. snack stacked in a tube.
A three-judge panel at the Court of Appeal threw out a lower courts ruling that for tax purposes the snack isn't a potato chip, stick or puff. The earlier ruling allowed Pringles to be sold without a sales duty.
While most food is exempt from Britain's 15 percent sales tax under British law, the U.K. tax office claimed Pringles are covered by an exception for products made from the potato, or from potato flour, or from potato starch.
P&Gs' lawyers argued Pringles don't look like a chip, don't feel like a chip and don't taste like a chip. They also claimed the snack isn't made like a chip since its cooked from baked dough, not potato slices. Justice Nicholas Warren in July agreed and ruled Pringles aren't made from the potato for the purposes of the tax exemption.
Justices John Mummery, Robin Jacob and Roger Toulson in today's ruling said it wasn't the lower court's job to look into scientific or technical questions about the composition of Pringles. A child would be able to give a more relevant and sensible answer than a food scientist, the judges said.
The court's decision could cost Cincinnati-based P&G as much as 20 million pounds ($31 million) a year, said the judgment, citing company lawyers.
-- Bloomberg News
Reader Reactions
somegeye: Your post made me laugh! Thanks!
What I am saying is you can’t have it both ways. Apparently, in the UK most foods except potato chips, puffs, and sticks are exempt from sales tax. Now these whiny pringle a-holes all of a sudden decide they’re not a chip anymore (even thought they’ve fought for this designation previously) so that they won’t have to be taxed. Whatever. So, since they have million dollar lawyers they should be able to get away without paying their share. Why shouldn’t they pay the tax that Utz or whoever else it is that sells chips over there has to pay. I’m sure they can afford it. They definitely don’t need you to defend them. Wish I could find a way to get away with not paying taxes. I hereby declare myself a chip, no longer a human, now quit taking taxes out of my paycheck.
All I have to say about this article is…Really?
somegeye: You think its stupid to try to avoid paying $31million in taxes simply because some bureacratic geek in a windowless office decided to make distinctions between chips and non-chips? What natural law ordained that one can be taxed and the other not? THAT’S stupid. What the government needs to do is fire that geek and all the other geeks that come up with stupid tax laws. Then they wouldn’t need the extra $31million dollars to pay them.
The funny thing is that I was watching one of those “how it’s made” type shows not to long ago, and when Pringles first came out (according to this show) other chip companies sued them trying to say they weren’t a potato chip and shouldn’t be allowed to call the product this. Here they fight to be called a chip, there they embrace their non-chipness to try to get away without paying the taxes that all the other chip makers pay. Stoopid corporations!
The shape of things to come. Anyone else see the 15% sales tax levy they have in the U.K.? Coming soon (sooner than you think) to a store near you. ...and you thought the government was giving you something…..
Why is ANY government involved with the process name of a SNACK CHIP!?!?
(rolls eyes) You want examples of wasted time/money by government? Here ya’ go!
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