Before you head out for Black Friday shopping, take note of what can happen with a European-style Value-Added Tax run amok, courtesy of our friends at TaxProf. In a paper presented Nov. 18 at the University of Connecticut Tax Lecture Series, Oxford University's Rita de la Feria described the amusing but instructive case of Jaffa Cakes. If these confections were indeed cake, they would be treated as food and thus exempt from the VAT. If, however, they were cookies, they would be subject to the full 17.5 percent rate.    more »