[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Mnementh

It might seem like the companies have raised their prices due to the removal of VAT but they haven't as VAT is not a sales tax. Yes it's confusing but that doesn't make you any less wrong.

So the company that sold you a whatsit for £100 which included 20% VAT and is now selling you a whatsit for £100 with no VAT has not increased their price despite that difference of £20 in what the company gets to keep.

Originally Posted by Mnementh

And as to the point of prices being automatically raised if VAT increases, they don't again the price on the sticker is the price paid, regardless of the VAT amount. Now that's not to say companies don't raise their prices if VAT increases because they do but it's not automatic like it would be if it was a sales tax. They would have to relabel all of the prices to increase them.

Yawn. This endless attempt to claim that VAT is not a tax because the amount is not broken out is getting risible. As for a company not increasing prices with a VAT increase? One of my friends used to work in a lumber business in the UK for years handling their VAT damn near fell off her chair laughing at that suggestion. Her response was that the shelf price labels would be replaced the second the VAT increase took effect if not sooner as in 1979 while in 2008, it took them a couple of months to change their labelling for the VAT decrease.

It's not as if in most cases, the government suddenly comes out and says the VAT rate will be changing as of midnight tonight though the ebook VAT cut was brought forward 7 months from it's original implementation date.

Of course we all know that politicians don't always mean what they say but such quotes as when Oliver Dowden said (bolding mine) suggest that it was expected for the VAT relief to be passed on to the consumer:

This tax relief on subscriptions to digital publications will boost our world-class publishers, save consumers money and reflects the surge in popularity of e-reading as we stay at home to protect the NHS.