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| Authored by: Wol on Thursday, August 16 2012 @ 09:13 AM EDT |
VAT is *mostly* uniform within a country. Our standard VAT rate used to be 15%,
then it rose to 17.5%, and now 20%. That said, it's still one of the lowest.
Most countries are about 25%.
Then there are the exceptions. Items which have never had VAT on them are, of
course, 0%. However, once VAT is levied, it cannot be taken off, and cannot be
reduced below 5%, so now energy here is taxed at 5%. Other countries mostly tax
"essentials" at 10%. It varies.
Of course, the lack of border controls means tax rates can't be too far out of
sync due to the potential of cross-border shopping, and where we've got the
little countries (Belgium, Luxembourg, Netherlands etc) that means most of the
population has the economic incentive to "pop across" if there's much
of a differential ...
Cheers,
Wol[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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| Authored by: Jim Olsen on Thursday, August 16 2012 @ 12:20 PM EDT |
A single brick-and-mortar retailer need only deal with one state's
revenue
department and only a few subsidiary taxation districts, if
any. It need only
deal with one state's idiosyncratic definitions of taxable vs.
non-taxable
goods. Keeping up with just that can be a significant burden.
Now multiply
that burden by a factor of 50 states (and DC) and thousands of
subsidiary
taxation districts, and you begin to see the problem.
The sensible thing
to do is say that states can levy sales tax on purchases via
out-of-state
websites, but that as applied to out-of-state vendors it must be
a flat rate
statewide and must
conform to a standard definition of taxable goods. It must
also make it clear
that such a website presence does not subject the
out-of-state vendor to the
other state's labor and environmental laws. (The
governments of states like
California can pass absurd laws to govern their own
people, but must not be
allowed to push them onto the rest of the
country.)
---
Jim ---
Success in crime always invites to worse deeds. - Lord Coke [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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| Authored by: complex_number on Thursday, August 16 2012 @ 01:43 PM EDT |
That is a nightmare.
When I rany my own company doing the VAT return every quarter took less than 10
minutes. Now it is all done online and is even quicker. If you aren't in the
trades that do significant 'cash-in-hand' work (eg builder, car mechanics) you
risk very little if you fiddle the VAT a bit. My accountant (now deceased) gave
me a whole heap of tips to bend the rules just a little bit in your favour. The
odds of a full VAT inspection are pretty small especially if you are in the
software business.
---
Ubuntu & 'apt-get' are not the answer to Life, The Universe & Everything which
is of course, "42" or is it 1.618?
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