I seem to recall VAT was originally sold to us as a 'luxury' tax which would only be applied to your second superyacht.
Income tax was only meant to be temporary measure, it was introduced to finance the Napoleonic war. :lol:
Moderator: Moderators
I seem to recall VAT was originally sold to us as a 'luxury' tax which would only be applied to your second superyacht.
I was just reading about a new cutsy euro electric city car, "Microlino"
£10,500
MOF wrote:I'm not sure I describe it as a 'scam' any more than any other form of taxation (not saying I like it mind you but taxes have to be paid and collected
Agreed, taxes have to be collected by the government, but taking 20% of your turnover, up front and regardless of your profitability, is certainly a ‘racket’.
If your profit margin is small then once you exceed the VAT threshold you’ve got to do a lot more turnover to increase your profits.
It’s not a way to get people to buy British, it’s a way to increase consumption.that's fine to try to get people to buy British
Mike Stranks wrote:
£6.53 is Duty and
£57.85 is Brokerage Charges.
Sam Spoons wrote:I think there may be a fundamental misunderstanding of how VAT works here. When buying from a foreign retailer, lets use Thomann as an example, you pay VAT either in Germany* or in the UK not in both. The VAT in Germany (which you paid before Brexit when you bought from Thomann) is 19%, the VAT in the UK is 20% so the difference is more or less negligible. But, since Brexit, there is UK duty to pay and a service charge charged by the carrier to collect the duty and VAT from you before handing over the goods. You didn't have to pay these charges before Brexit. FWIW most music related goods don't attract any duty if imported from Germany (though they might if they originated outside the EU). Most price rises have been due to exchange rates responding to the falling value of pound against the Dollar and/or the Euro.
* If/when Thomann register for UK VAT they will I believe, be able to export to the UK without the same problems as they are having during this transition period.
CS70 wrote:
Btw, apparently VAT was introduced in the UK as a condition to join the common market back in 1954.
It wasn't really an EU invention. We had a form of 'consumption tax' from 1940 called Purchase Tax. This scheme was tweaked slightly and rebranded as the EU-friendly VAT in 1973.CS70 wrote:Btw, apparently VAT was introduced in the UK as a condition to join the common market back in 1973