News Retailers to minimise impact of VAT increase

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/gaming/2011/01/05/retailers-to-minimise-impact-of-vat-increas/1

 

this sucks ;(

 

game dont offer good prices anyway as they are always about 15-50% more expensive than online so not fussed

 

Please replace the article image with this one: http://buls.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/osborne21.jpg

 

Cei, have a rep.

 

Ive seen alot of companies already up prices of a variety of things, some now have weird prices (35.61 etc) but alot are just rounding up to the nearest nice number, milking a bit more profit and blaming the VAT increase.

 

You can't have 35.605 though can you? And companies want to make money so of course they are gonna round up and not down

 

i think he means like instead of 35.61 just doing 36.99 or 35.99 etc

 

I have seen some retailers increase their prices between 10-15% even though it is only a 2.5% increase. I guess they are trying to cash in on the rise and blame the government.

For example: Amazon.co.uk offered the Nintendo Wii for £150 before the rise and now it's £164. I'm not good at maths but I think that is more than 2.5%?

 

yes: 1.2*(150/1.175)=£153.19
Even if you just add a straight 2.5% on that's still not right.

 

Retailers will definitely use this as an excuse to over inflate their prices.

If you do the sums, the actual increase in selling price is only 2.1%, as the 2.5% increase is related to only the VAT proportion.

Therefore in the above example the selling price should go from 39.99 to about 40.83! They are going to start taking advantage of people who don't realise the true costs!

 

There needs to be a statue to commemorate this government. A hundred metre high face buried in a colossal granite palm.

 

Don't give them ideas - they're already incredibly good at wasting huge sums of money!

 

Stop complaining. We've got 23% VAT since last year and had 22% before that for several years allready.

Even with the increased VAT the UK is still the cheapest country in europe to buy electronics.

 

I really dont think this is a great time to put the VAT up to 20%, it gives out the wrong impression to the economy, we are starting to show signs of a slow recovery and an increase in VAT will only discourage spending and artificially increase inflation.

Also no matter what they say VAT is not a progressive tax, it hits the poor hardest simply because we all pay the same rate, no getting away from it!!

 

But the money has to come from somewhere. I think its much better this way than taking it out of your income or national insurance.

At least this way you can choose not to spend on non essentials, I know thats hard but unlike your income tax it is possible (remember that basic food and gas/electric vat hasn't changed).

I definatly agree that it sucks that everything has got more expensive, but the government always said this had to happen.

 

true but vat impact more than just the item, fuel to get deliveries to the shop ,for example is effected too. tho yes, the VAT increase on items is suspiciously high in some cases like the local £1 shop reducing offers from 5 for a £1 on can to 3 for a £1 and now charging for bags (which is where they said they would absorb the cost) Last time VAT dropped to 15% nothing reduced in price yet when it went back up to 17.5 prices went up! Best example was bus fares, £1.50 a single is now £2.00 in that space of time and I bet prices will go up again.

 

And anyway, they'd end up making it out of concrete and it would still cost more than they first predicted lol

 

<Mini_rant>
Well Labour handled our economy awfully for 13 years (economy was stable for 10 years and they over-spent despite Gordon 'I saved the World' Brown's golden rules of fiscal spending, and then things just skyrocketed when the recession hit).

So a VAT rise to 20% was inevitable (especially since Labour also cocked up by lowering VAT to 15%, wasting billions without raising consumer spending).

I know that people like to be lied to by politicians and be told that everything will be awesome without anything changing, but the truth is that these cuts and tax rises are sadly necessary. Which is why Labour support most of them, despite their pre-election lies that they wouldn't have made cuts (which we know now - thanks to leaked documents - were false since they were planning on making big cuts).

Ah well, having a good moan because a polical party is actually sticking to their election promises is always fun I guess. No wonder politicians lie so much: it's what the public want. Tell the truth and stick to election promises (ala Tories) and get slated. Lie, lie, lie (ala Labour) and win support.

This is why politics sucks. Not because of politicians. But because the public vote for lies.

</Mini_rant>

Anywhoo, it's annoying that retailers are using this as an excuse to screw consumers. I know that retail was hit with the recession, but 10% price hikes over just 2.5% tax rises will just backfire IMO.

 

Although I can certainly commiserate, in Denmark we've had a VAT of 25% for ages (read: since 1992, up from 22% since 1980). Oh, and our VAT is 25% on everything. There's no differentiation like in some countries (don't know if it applies to the UK, though). Also, whenever we buy a car we get to pay for three.