New Suspension + VAT?

On or around Tue, 25 Nov 2008 22:16:26 +0000, Mark Solesbury enlightened us thusly:

replace it all with OME.

basket screen £205 +

• 15% making the same

This what I was wondering. I find it improbable that the government will actually police it, so most people are simply gonna up the prices and blame the recession/credit crunch/whatever.

But I shall be pleasantly surprised if anything does come down in price.

I think it will actually depend on whether a companies internal price structure is based on VAT inclusive or exclusive pricing. With the former I doubt the prices will change, the companies will say the "invitation to treat" is at that price inclusive of all taxes, the fact the tax element has changed is not relevant(*). From companies that calculate the nett total using exclusive prices you probably will see a gross price reduction, unless they do put up their prices...

(*) I disagree inclusive prices include VAT but VAT has never been a fixed rate or amount it has always being a variable. The amount charged should be that applicable to the goods/services at the time of supply, full stop. The fact that Standard rate hasn't actually changed for nearly 20 years is and people have come to think of it as fixed is the bit that isn't relevant.

Thats a fairly restricted view of the realities of a complex situation.

A business should be free to the set prices it requires in order to remain viable BUT the final price including VAT can be a barrier to realistic pricing. If the 2.5% goes to retail businesses and serves to keep them viable and their staff in employment it will do as much or maybe even more long term good than it will in the consumers pockets.

In reailty the end result will probably sit somewhere in the middle ground.

I'm astounded at the optimism of a chancellor that believes that businesses will be able to implement this change over one of the busiest sales weekends of the year ;(

In message , Mark Solesbury writes

More importantly what will you say if the price doesn't come down? I'm sure someone will be able to offer a few choice phrases.

When you have a Government full of polytechnic lecturers and spivvy lawyers who have never done a day's honest graft in their lives, that's what you get. It's not optimism, it's a complete lack of clue about how the real world operates. They really don't get it.

Fuck's sake. You are Fred Dibnah and I claim my free lead ingot.

Look at the CVs of most of the present Government - especially the high flyers - and you will see people who have done a couple of years in social work or lecturing or as a trades union official, and then gone into politics full-time, as well as a lot of ex-lawyers (probably the worst of the lot, such as the Blairs). None of them has been an engineer, or a craftsman, or run a small business, or tried to make a living running a shop, which was the point of the original poster.

Note that I said 'Government', not MPs, some of whom have quite credible backgrounds.

Gordon Brown - university, lecturing, journalism, MP Alistair Darling - university, solicitor, MP

To name but two.

Margaret Becket, metallurgist....

Steve

Margaret Thatcher, chemist ...

Yes, but to get ahead, she had to become a lawyer.

There are or were 3 Engineers in the whole of Parliament. The ENTIRE Chinese Politburo seem to be Engineers !

Steve

Neither have most doctors, truck drivers, bank managers or any other professions, why do you or the OP seem to think that a politician has to do the job you do in order to be valid? And why do people seem to think that politicians make these decisions themselves without getting advice from interested parties?

Doctors, truck drivers and bank managers or any other professions (apart from accountants, and engineers, and (some) lawyers) don't pretend to know how to run a business or an economy. Politicians do, and from a background of zero real knowledge.

Steve

On or around Wed, 26 Nov 2008 23:22:31 -0000, "Rich B" enlightened us thusly:

did yer hear David Davies on Desert Island Discs? fascinating bloke.

VAT registered companies will get a letter through the post detailing this stuff, I know I got mine yesterday. Basically if you paid 17.5% VAT on goods, then you claim that back. You charge the lower rate when you sell those goods though if you sell them after December 1st. So if you have something that cost £100 ex vat, you'll sell it for £115 inc vat and claim back £17.50 vat.

While this sounds initially odd, it's not, as there are two rounds of VAT involved here, the first when you buy the goods at the old rate, and you then charge that back, and the second, completely separate round of VAT charging is when you yourself sell the goods so the rate changing between the two is neither here nor there.

The idea is (apparently) to discourage people from holding on to their money as prices fall in the shops in the hope that prices will drop still further. They've stated the VAT change will be temporary so that makes it plain that prices will not keep dropping as they will be pushed back up by the VAT increase, so don't hang on to the cash in the hope of future bargains.

Career politicians have very little real world experience and have lead relatively sheltered and affluent lives. How much does an MP get as basic pay? What is the national average? There is a rather large gap. They also crave power and as Douglas Adams said those that desire power should on no account be allowed to have it.

More often than not individual MPs just tow the party line. Very rarely does one make a stand, 'cause if they do they booted out of the party. And I use the word "party" with both the political and fun meanings...

Because we all like to think we know more about politics and politicians than politicians do. :-)

You seem to be fall into the trap of assuming that businesses put prices up to rip their customers off!

It's one way of looking at it but it's any unbelievable narrow and simplistic view of the situation.

Running an economy isn't like running a business for a start, and politicians are not economists, they are politicians, that's why they have masses of economists in the civil service who actually do the donkey work. The politicians don't think up the schemes. Think of it like the managing director of a car company, he/she/it doesn't know the first thing about designing a car but they still run a car company. They decide the direction the company is to head in, taking advice from employees who track the market and perform research on the kinds of cars people are going to want and all that kind of thing, then the techies design the cars to fit that as best as they can, and the MD knows relatively little about all these things but balances the conflicting advice from the team members. They run the company, not the products.

The vast majority of work involved in governing the country is done by the civil service, with loose guidance from the politicians basically.

What kind of argument is that? A politician's average pay is £63,000, about the same (slightly less in fact) as the average pay of the MD of a *small* company. Do you expect them to do their job for the same wages as a supermarket worker?

Bear in mind that the top 5% of the population earn £36,000 and above, the average wage is low because so many people earn that much as the vast majority of jobs don't pay that much, those who do very specialised jobs in roles that are hard or unpleasant to do command higher wages because there are few who can do it, and politicians, no matter what you might like to think, do a skilled, difficult job and are rewarded accordingly.

As an aside, a chap I met earned high wages as a window cleaner, not because window cleaning is a skilled job, but doing it suspended on the end of a rope after abseiling down the outside of a skyscraper isn't something that many will do. He does those windows that other cleaners cannot reach ;-) He also does a bit of painting and other maintenance work where gantries etc can't get to. Rather him than me! There are so few people prepared to do that, despite it being relatively unskilled, that he gets paid loads of wonga compared to others who do similar work without dangling on the end of a rope 30 floors up. On the whole, how much someone gets paid depends on how easy it is to replace them.

I seem to remember douglas adams writing about matresses that go flibble a lot.

National policy is decided by the massed ranks of experts in the field, not by the politicians, so it's not surprising that on national matters, the rank and file don't venture opposing points of view much, as they don't have the depth of research behind them that the main policies tend to have. They do often stand up in the house and stand up for their local constituents if they are going to lose out due to a policy, even when that policy is their own party's policy. I doubt you'll believe that but never mind.