If I buy a cappuccino from the canteen at work it costs me £1.09. If a student buys a cappuccino from the same canteen is costs them 95p. I believe that the difference (14p) arises because students do not have to pay Value-Added-Tax (VAT) on their food and drink purchases whereas staff do. I can understand this but what I would like to know is does it make a difference i) who drinks the cappuccino? or ii) who’s money is used to buy the cappuccino? or iii) who hands over the money that is used to buy the cappuccino? What would happen in each of the following situations:
- I buy a cappuccino for a student to drink
- A student buys a cappuccino for me to drink
- I use a student’s money to buy a student a cappuccino to drink
- I give my money to a student to buy a cappuccino for me to drink
- I give my money to a student to buy a cappuccino for them to drink
- A student gives me the money for me to buy myself a cappuccino to drink
It seems to me that in cases 1, 3 and 4 the cost of the cappuccino is £1.09 and in cases 2, 5 a 6 the cost is 95p but in cases 2, 4 and 6 I get to do the drinking and in cases 1, 3 and 5 the student does the drinking. Case 4 is the best one for me, so if any of my students are reading this and want to come to some kind of arrangement, feel free to get in touch (there’s the seed of a money-making idea in here somewhere).
Tim O'Hare 
It gets ever more complicated. There is a coffee machine just like the one in the canteen in a small staff only seating area in my building. From this machine a cappuccino (or other coffee variant) costs only 90p. So that suggests that it costs 19p for someone else to put the cup under the outlet and push the button. The only problem with this machine is that it doesn’t take change so the chances are that you end up paying £1 not 90p. When I used the machine this morning there was 10p credit on it from the previous purchaser. After I had used it there was 20p credit on it. I guess that someone will get lucky at some point!