MARGARET E WARD CENTS & NONSENSEEVERYONE HAS their favourite - Jaffa cakes, ginger biscuits, chocolate chip cookies - and their own unique way of eating them. Some of us like to nibble around the edges or pick the chocolate off the top while others twist them apartso they can savour one portion at a time.

But does it make any difference if you call it a biscuit or a teacake as you dunk it into your tea? It does to Marks & Spencer. Things were sweet for the retailer this week as they learned that a name-calling row with the British tax authorities may yield them a tasty €4.3 million (£3.5 million) VAT refund. Apparently, British tax officials are very particular about their snacks. In 1973, they categorised an M&S chocolate-covered marshmallow confection with a crispy base as a biscuit and this recently landed them in the European Court of Justice (ECJ). Biscuits, you see, attract VAT at 17.5 per cent in the UK whereas cakes do not incur VAT at all. M&S has been fighting this court battle for more than 10 years.

After you stop laughing at the image of never-crack-a-smile solicitors debating the virtues of the humble biscuit over a cake, you may wonder why we should care in Ireland?

If the ECJ ruling stands in the British courts, M&S will claim back the VAT it paid on the marshmallow teacakes between 1973 and 1994. Many people, including Stuart Payne of the authoritative British tea website www.nicecupofteaandasitdown.com, think the refund should pour down to consumers. "It's all very well for Marks & Spencer to deprive the Treasury of its booty but wasn't it us (or at least our mums) who actually paid the VAT for all those teacakes in the first place?" Something similar happened here. In 2006, the Revenue Commissioners realised that they shouldn't have demanded VAT on eye tests. They decided to allow retrospective refunds, not to the consumers who paid the VAT, but to the opticians who collected it on the State's behalf. Opticians couldn't believe their good luck.

At the time, the chairman of the Revenue Commissioners told the Committee of Public Accounts that he believed consumers had a legal right to a share of this refund. However, the Government said opticians had no obligation under EU law to return this windfall to the consumer. Of course, consumers can ask for a refund but very few people seem to know about their right to do so.

When the banks were found overcharging customers they had to trawl back through all their records to repay consumers. Why are opticians any different from the banks? They owe people money and it's time they started going back through their records and doling it out.

Another group of people who are "taking the biscuit" in their treatment of taxpayers is the management of Waterford Wedgwood, led by Sir Anthony O'Reilly. This week they asked the Government to pledge €36 million in loan guarantees to help bail out iconic Irish brand Waterford Crystal. Why? Well, no one else will give them any more money. They've burned their way through €775 million in investments since 2003. Their investors say no. The banks have shut the doors to them and Waterford's management seems unwilling to put more of their personal finances at risk.

Now maybe Waterford's management has been distracted by the Battle of the O'Egos (O'Reilly vs Denis O'Brien) for the heart of the Independent kingdom but this request is absolutely ridiculous. This is a private company, not a semi-state or a government body, and most of its operations take place abroad. Management needs to pick up the shattered Waterford pieces, not the Irish Government. It's easy enough to understand the logic: "Hmm, who is enough of a sucker to invest in a company that no one seems to have faith in? The Irish people of course! I mean, the Government convinced them that investing in Eircom was a good idea so surely they'll allow the Government to release some cash to help save a major Irish brand?"

Taxpayers' money is like a supermarket-brand plain digestive biscuit. It's there for everyone to see. There's no chocolate to hide under, no fancy name or packaging. It's just sitting there waiting to be spent and this sweet snack is tempting for a company staring into the furnace of doom.

Let's send a clear message to the Government on this one: it is not OK for companies to keep our VAT rebates and, when it comes to raiding the Exchequer cookie-jar, they should tell Waterford's management to go eat teacake!

Margaret E Ward is a journalist and a director of Clear Ink, the clear English specialists. cents@clearink.ie