VAT is changing
November 24th, 2008 | 12:07 pmTo those of you reading this from the UK, you may or may not be aware that the rate of Value Added Tax (VAT) is changing in less than week’s time. Currently 17.5%, it will drop to 15% as of 1st December 2008.
In general, this will be good news for most as it will mean slightly reduced prices on goods you buy in the UK. However, please be alert when using online stores as many software solutions will have set the 17.5% VAT rate in a way that cannot be easily altered. Ensure you’re being charged the right amount!
VAT Change aims to educate business owners and software developers on the need for change and what should be done. It recently launched and is the work of a friend of a friend, so I can vouch for it’s good intentions. I have no affiliation with it’s creator, we’ve never met nor spoken!
Readers outside the UK will most likely not be affected by this change, but if you’re interested in what VAT is, you can read all about it at Wikipedia. Here’s a brief snippet:
Value added tax (VAT), or goods and services tax (GST), is a consumption tax levied on value added. In contrast to sales tax, VAT is neutral with respect to the number of passages that there are between the producer and the final consumer; where sales tax is levied on total value at each stage, the result is a cascade (downstream taxes levied on upstream taxes).
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