Now, I'm no macro-economist. But even I can see that increasing VAT during a period of economic troubles is a bad idea.

People will just buy less, companies will struggle, lay off more staff, etc.

If you want to raise money from the public, then put up income tax, or corporation tax, or something like that. At least they're not really something that you can avoid, but you can avoid a fair bit of VAT by not buying expensive goods.

Crazy. Let's see what comes of it.