Dave wrote in
:

On Fri, 14 Mar 2008 15:30:53 +0000, Larry said:

VAT is piled
upon EVERY link in the money exchange chain from the mine to the
consumer, multiplying its real percentage into the price the consumer
pays many times over.

So, Larry, you think that if the VAT rate is 20%, and I buy parts for
$.80 and resell the assembled product for $1.00, I'm going to have to
collect and pay over to the guvmint $.20 in VAT?


Rolled into the price outside the USA. Every point on the chain from when
they dig it out of the ground where money changes hands, VAT is added and
rolled into the price when it goes up the chain.....

It's not just Sales Tax we pay here....

Larry wrote:
Dave wrote in
:
On Fri, 14 Mar 2008 15:30:53 +0000, Larry said:
VAT is piled
upon EVERY link in the money exchange chain from the mine to the
consumer, multiplying its real percentage into the price the consumer
pays many times over.
So, Larry, you think that if the VAT rate is 20%, and I buy parts for
$.80 and resell the assembled product for $1.00, I'm going to have to
collect and pay over to the guvmint $.20 in VAT?
Rolled into the price outside the USA. Every point on the chain from when
they dig it out of the ground where money changes hands, VAT is added and
rolled into the price when it goes up the chain.....

I had hoped someone better versed in economics in general
and VAT in particular would correct this false premise - but
see that I will just have to step in ...

Each registered business does indeed pay VAT on its stage of
a product's path to final sale to the consumer but each
business is able to claim that payment back once it leaves
for the next stage, so in practice no payment is made.
Therefore, that payment is not reflected in the product's
cost of production, only the consumer pays the final VAT,
making it similar to a normal sales tax.

I have been reliably informed by those who understand these
things that this is the most equitable form of taxation that
is difficult to evade, although invoking a bureaucratic
overhead.

HTH.
BrianH.

BrianH wrote:
Larry wrote:
Dave wrote in
:
On Fri, 14 Mar 2008 15:30:53 +0000, Larry said:
VAT is piled upon EVERY link in the money exchange chain from the
mine to the
consumer, multiplying its real percentage into the price the consumer
pays many times over.
So, Larry, you think that if the VAT rate is 20%, and I buy parts for
$.80 and resell the assembled product for $1.00, I'm going to have to
collect and pay over to the guvmint $.20 in VAT?
Rolled into the price outside the USA. Every point on the chain from
when they dig it out of the ground where money changes hands, VAT is
added and rolled into the price when it goes up the chain.....

I had hoped someone better versed in economics in general and VAT in
particular would correct this false premise - but see that I will just
have to step in ...

[snip VAT explanation]

Thanks Brian, I was afraid I'd have to do it. ;-o However it will not
assuage Larry's fears vis-a-vis Machiavellian monetary conspiracies.

Cheers
Marty

BrianH wrote in news:829ed$47db6af5$5449e348$1574
@news.hispeed.ch:

Each registered business does indeed pay VAT on its stage of
a product's path to final sale to the consumer but each
business is able to claim that payment back once it leaves
for the next stage, so in practice no payment is made.
Therefore, that payment is not reflected in the product's
cost of production, only the consumer pays the final VAT,
making it similar to a normal sales tax.


I learn something new every day. This is today's discovery. I didn't know
they get it back. I assumed, wrongly it seems, that it was accumulated.

It certainly wouldn't be given back in the United States of America. We'd
invent a new layer of local government bureaucrats who would live quite
well upon each layer of kept VAT, here.

Does VAT work that way in every European country, or just Switzerland?

On Mar 15, 9:10 am, Larry wrote:
BrianH wrote in news:829ed$47db6af5$5449e348$1574
@news.hispeed.ch:
....
Does VAT work that way in every European country, or just Switzerland?

We have a thing called a goods and services general excise tax (GST)
here in Hawaii that is VAT without the write-off so it pyramids. It
is very powerful, largely hidden and extraordinarily regressive.

-- Tom.

Larry wrote:
BrianH wrote in news:829ed$47db6af5$5449e348$1574
@news.hispeed.ch:

Each registered business does indeed pay VAT on its stage of
a product's path to final sale to the consumer but each
business is able to claim that payment back once it leaves
for the next stage, so in practice no payment is made.
Therefore, that payment is not reflected in the product's
cost of production, only the consumer pays the final VAT,
making it similar to a normal sales tax.


I learn something new every day. This is today's discovery. I didn't know
they get it back. I assumed, wrongly it seems, that it was accumulated.

It certainly wouldn't be given back in the United States of America. We'd
invent a new layer of local government bureaucrats who would live quite
well upon each layer of kept VAT, here.

Does VAT work that way in every European country, or just Switzerland?

Oh dear Larry, this is why I didn't want to respond
initially, because I am no tax expert although I do have the
basics. I had a friend in the UK who gave up his engineering
business and went off sailing when VAT was first introduced.
I remember him waving a big, thick book and saying "Here are
all the regulations and instruction how I've got to
introduce all this VAT bookkeeping - I give up." Actually, I
think it was just an excuse to retire early and take off in
his yacht.

No, the principle is European wide, only the rate varies.
Here in CH it was ca. 9% on a pair of winches I just
imported while most EU countries it is much higher, often
around 20% (CH is not in the EU).

Many products are zero-rated, such as food, children's
clothes, books, etc and other products/services have
differing percentage groups.

I remember how I used to get an irate phone call from my
company's accounts department if I ever included a hotel
bill in my expenses that I hadn't asked reception to add our
corporate VAT number with my name - it meant they couldn't
claim the expense back.
Best, BrianH.

BrianH wrote in news:d40f0$47dcc922$544bb5cd$13325
@news.hispeed.ch:

Many products are zero-rated, such as food, children's
clothes, books, etc and other products/services have
differing percentage groups.


Thank you for the information. I have an old friend in his 80s from Thun,
Berner Oberland, and he wants to take me with him to visit the few old
friends he has left before it's his turn. With the dollar so weak, I'm not
sure that will ever happen again, but I'd love to go. He says, "These are
not Swiss people. They all speak GERMAN, not Swiss German!" His German is
before television and his Swiss friends who come here to visit him all
comment on his old version of the language.

In South Carolina, the 8.5% sales tax is on EVERYTHING, including
food/clothes/other staples of life. They take it and keep it. We don't
pay sales tax on fuel, though. It's not enough for them. We pay fixed
34.5c/gallon on gasoline and 39.7c/gallon on diesel...but not at the
marinas where red tractor diesel is sold, like the farmers use, without the
"road tax" that's siphoned off to support the vote buying system...rather
than put into road maintenance where it was supposed to go. Our roads are
falling apart because of it.

When Werner came back from Thun last time, a few years ago, I was looking
through the pictures from the streets and told him it looked fake! There
wasn't even a single piece of paper in the gutters. Near the last picture,
I went, "AHA! I see one!". There was a piece of paper in the street
behind the friends he was taking a picture of....but there was a little old
lady poised over it about to pick it up...(c; Thun has got to be one of
the cleanest cities on the planet. The views are simply amazingly
beautiful. I want to go sailing on the Thunersee!

Do they really stop at a stopligiht and shut the engines off where you
live? They do that in Thun, then restart to go. I still think he was
joking.

Larry wrote:
BrianH wrote in news:d40f0$47dcc922$544bb5cd$13325
@news.hispeed.ch:

[snipped]
When Werner came back from Thun last time, a few years ago, I was looking
through the pictures from the streets and told him it looked fake! There
wasn't even a single piece of paper in the gutters. Near the last picture,
I went, "AHA! I see one!". There was a piece of paper in the street
behind the friends he was taking a picture of....but there was a little old
lady poised over it about to pick it up...(c; Thun has got to be one of
the cleanest cities on the planet. The views are simply amazingly
beautiful. I want to go sailing on the Thunersee!

Because of the mountains on either shore the wind is
generally N/S along the lake, it's certainly quite a
backdrop, especially to the south with the Eiger, Mönch and
Jungfrau mountains hanging there. I used to race from the
Interlaken end (I live in Bern). Now I'm retired I take off
for the Med, living aboard for the summers.

But you might be disappointed with the present cleanliness
of Switzerland, it's no longer quite how Werner tells it,
unfortunately.

Do they really stop at a stopligiht and shut the engines off where you
live? They do that in Thun, then restart to go. I still think he was
joking.

Well, some do, and all the signs fixed on the traffic lights
request you do so, but just as many people don't. An
enormous influx of foreigners has internationalized the
mentality - meaning there is no longer the strict discipline
that Werner epitomized. There are pros and cons to that
(mainly cons, I'm afraid).

Best, BrianH.

BrianH wrote in news:201ad$47dd4fc5$544bb5cd$29315
@news.hispeed.ch:

Well, some do, and all the signs fixed on the traffic lights
request you do so, but just as many people don't. An
enormous influx of foreigners has internationalized the
mentality - meaning there is no longer the strict discipline
that Werner epitomized. There are pros and cons to that
(mainly cons, I'm afraid).

Best, BrianH.


I got Werner on the internet a few years ago. In my first email to him, I
sent him off to the Follies Bergiere, a whorehouse in Thun. HE KNEW
EXACTLY WHERE IT WAS! It was in what was his neighborhood before WW2 when
he and his wife and son fled to Canada fearful of Hitler's Reich. They are
really fine people...(c;

American music seems responsible for a lot of the pollution on Swiss radio
channels. But, alas, the Swiss have retaliated, quite successfully!
http://www.volksmusiknet.ch/
NOONE can be sad listening to accordion music....(c;

I leave you all with the grim facts ....
Current USA average income tax is 17%
Current USA average TOTAL taxes (Income, FICA, Sales, excise, sales,
school, personal property,capital gains etc.) is approaching 48-52%
yet increasing.
Current % of USA healthcare is 16-17% of GDP.
If healthcare becomes 'universal' then that adds 17% .... +17% added
to total income taxes = 34% for a total bill of 65%-67%.
That will be fairly close to the rates of the central EU .... where
the social benefits are rapidly evaporating due to utopian
spending.
Only to leave Norway and the Scandinavians with total higher tax bill
approaching into the 90%+ range.

I say that we go back and reclaim the tea that was dumped into the
Boston harbor, apologise to the King and effect a restoration. Will
be MUCH cheaper in the long term.
Hell a tax on tea, a tax on a few legal document and to have a Brit
soldier stay in your home occasionally in retrospect of the todays
total mugging by the leftists was much better.
Bring back the king, lock down the borders, put all the leftists and
shysters in reeducation camps, remove ALL the current politicians from
office .... and simply begin all over again.