Most of the world - other than a few places (US included) - switched to VAT ages ago. It’s a more efficient system. It’s not the same as “sales tax”. It’s literary a “value added tax” and every purchase and sale includes it - even for materials and half products.
The idea here is that you pay a tax on the amount of value you add in the chain. VAT is an indirect tax, because the consumer who ultimately bears the burden of the tax is not the entity that pays it.
It’s also much more transparent, as it must be included in the quoted price. Not like the US, where you see an item on the self for $5.00 and then the total at the register is $9.54 because it now has sales, city, state, and federal tax.
It’s a tax on every stage of the process, nobody “switched to it”. All for the government, that didn’t contribute to the process. That doesn’t make a train stop at my mom’s home town anymore even though their country is smaller than my state but has all the tax money. Including price in price is nothing. The SIZE is the important part. I balked at 9% sales tax in my state, used to be 6%. Yours is amplified 20% times 5. Design, execution, physical build, assembly, final product. That’s crazy.
And why ever say “we switched to VAT”. It’s just a name. Tax, VAT, Tariff. All words. You’re probably a bot anyway.
I balled at 9% sales tax… Yours is amplified 20%, times 5… It’s just a name.
This shows deep misunderstanding in what VAT is and how it works. It’s not “a flat out 20% sales tax with a different name”. The concept is different. But I do not have neither time or energy to argue on the internet.
Most of the world - other than a few places (US included) - switched to VAT ages ago. It’s a more efficient system. It’s not the same as “sales tax”. It’s literary a “value added tax” and every purchase and sale includes it - even for materials and half products.
The idea here is that you pay a tax on the amount of value you add in the chain. VAT is an indirect tax, because the consumer who ultimately bears the burden of the tax is not the entity that pays it.
It’s also much more transparent, as it must be included in the quoted price. Not like the US, where you see an item on the self for $5.00 and then the total at the register is $9.54 because it now has sales, city, state, and federal tax.
Check the Wikipedia article as well: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value-added_tax
It’s a tax on every stage of the process, nobody “switched to it”. All for the government, that didn’t contribute to the process. That doesn’t make a train stop at my mom’s home town anymore even though their country is smaller than my state but has all the tax money. Including price in price is nothing. The SIZE is the important part. I balked at 9% sales tax in my state, used to be 6%. Yours is amplified 20% times 5. Design, execution, physical build, assembly, final product. That’s crazy.
And why ever say “we switched to VAT”. It’s just a name. Tax, VAT, Tariff. All words. You’re probably a bot anyway.
This shows deep misunderstanding in what VAT is and how it works. It’s not “a flat out 20% sales tax with a different name”. The concept is different. But I do not have neither time or energy to argue on the internet.
Because we used to have sales tax.
Gee. Thanks?